The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sorrow. Who could tell, with a mad man? “Ah well. In time we’ll know.”
    It was nonsense, of course. He had little time for religion, old or new. But the soothsayer looked in a bad way, so he pulled a plain gold ring from his finger.
    “Take this, old man. Buy yourself a warm bed and hot food. And when next the spirits whisper, whisper to them from me that a faithful servant should be better served.”
    The soothsayer’s eyes glittered as he stared at the ring. Then he snatched it, and with much muttering and arm-waving hobbled out of the forecourt.
    “Your Grace,” Curteis murmured, arriving on soft feet that barely disturbed the raked gravel. “Is aught amiss?”
    Aimery frowned after the soothsayer, an indistinct bundle of rags vanishing into the high street’s bustle. Mad old men and their ramblings. Throw a stone into any crowd and you’d likely strike at least three.
    “No. Can we go?”
    Curteis nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. As it please you.”
    They rode knee-to-knee out of the inn’s stable yard in a clattering of hooves, with his body squire and his scribe and his men-at-arms close at heel.
    “Be warned, Curteis,” he said, as they scattered pie-sellers and cobblers and fishwives before them along Piper’s Wade high street, “and share the warning with them that ride behind. I wish to sleep in my own bed under my own roof sooner rather than later. Therefore we shall travel swiftly, with few halts, and should I hear a tongue clapping complaint I swear I’ll kick the culprit’s arse seven shades of black and blue.”
    “Yes, Your Grace,” said Curteis, smiling. He was well used to his duke.
    With the past two weeks fresh in mind, Aimery scowled. “I tell you plain, man, I’ve heard enough clapping tongues lately to last me till my funeral.”
    “The lords of the Green Isle were indeed fretsome, Your Grace.”
    “Fretsome?” He snorted. “Snaggle-brained, you should call them. Vexatious. Full of wind. Especially that cross-grained fuck Terriel.”
    “Your Grace,” agreed Curteis. “Lord Terriel and his noble brothers farted many noisome words. But you set them well straight.”
    Yes, he did. And woe betide a one of them who again dared defy his judgement. That man, be he ever so lordly, even the great and grasping Terriel, would find himself so handily chastised there’d be scars on his great-grandson’s arse.
    Bleakly satisfied, still impatient, Aimery urged his iron-dappled palfrey into a canter, then swung left off the high street onto Hook Way, which would lead them eventually to his ducal forest of Burnt Wood. If the rain held off and no mischance befell them, with the horses well rested they’d be in and out of the forest by day’s end. Spend the night in Sparrowholt on its far side, leave at dawn on the morrow, ride hard with little dallying and with fortune they’d reach the Croft before sunset.
    And so it proved. But when he did at last trot beneath the archingstone gateway of his favourite castle’s inner bailey, feeling every one of his fifty-four years, he found himself ridden into yet another storm. For standing in the Croft’s torchlit keep, clad head to toe in unrelieved black velvet, was old Herewart of nearby Bann Crossing. He trembled in the dusk’s chill, tears swiftly slicking his withered cheeks. Waiting with him, stood at a wary distance, Balfre and Grefin.
    “What is this, Balfre?” Aimery demanded of his accidental heir, even as his gaze lingered on his youngest son. His favourite, now that Malcolm was dead. “Why am I greeted with such confusion?”
    He’d sent a man ahead, to warn of his arrival and stir the castle’s servants to duty. As they hurried to take the horses and relieve Curteis and the scribe of their note-filled satchels, and the men-at-arms waited with their hands ready on their swords, he saw Balfre and Grefin exchange disquieting looks. But before his heir could answer, Herewart let out a cry cracked-full of grief and approached without