The Future King: Logres Read Online Free PDF

suspended halfway
between her plate and her mouth. ‘Guess who I saw at the hairdresser’s today?
Gwen? Someone whose child goes to the same school as you! How funny is that?’
    Her father stepped in when Gwenhwyfar failed to respond. ‘Really?
That is quite funny. Who was it, then? Is their child in the same year?’
    ‘Not only the same year, but she’s in the same tutor group. I
wouldn’t have known had I not had to pick up Gwen’s timetable this morning. She
was called Olivia, and said her daughter was Emily. Emily something? Pass me
the sauce please, Garan.’
    The sauce was handed to Gwenhwyfar, who handed it to her mother.
‘Thank you,’ she beamed. ‘What do you think, by the way? Of my hair?’
    ‘I think it’s lovely, Eve,’ Garan smiled. ‘Though I do like your
natural colour, too.’
    Gwenhwyfar twisted the cap of the still water. ‘I met an Emily today.
She showed me around school. Her surname is Rose. She has horses, apparently. She
said I could ride them whenever I want.’
    ‘Well that’s kind of her,’ Garan remarked, slurping his drink.
    ‘She invited me over this Friday to stay the night. Can I?’
    ‘Of course!’ Eve enthused, eager for her daughter to make friends.
‘Her mother seemed very agreeable. She gave a tenner to the homeless child that
was begging outside.’ Eve flicked her newly bleached hair over her shoulder.
    ‘A tenner?’ Garan’s eyebrows arched. ‘She does know that it’s
probably been given to some man who’ll spend it all on drugs?’
    ‘If she’s that rich, why would she mind? She even tipped her
hairdresser twenty percent. I think she was just showing off.’
    Gwenhwyfar frowned at the pointless diversion her parents seemed to
be taking. ‘A homeless child—? Where were the parents?’
    ‘Their parents are probably the ones gathering the money it
collects,’ her father explained.
    ‘So the parents are homeless too?’
    Garan shook his head. ‘Probably not, cariad. The child isn’t likely
to be homeless, either. It was probably just a scam.’
    ‘He looked fairly homeless to me,’ Eve disputed.
    ‘A good scam, then,’ Garan maintained.
    ‘His teeth were rotting. I don’t know about you, but no parent I know
would let their child’s teeth rot for a scam. He was too thin and dirty.’
    ‘Well, then he must have been an immigrant. You know how hard it is
for them here. Of course he was homeless.’
    ‘He was English.’
    ‘He can’t have been. He was probably an illegal.’
    ‘He wasn’t foreign,’ Eve insisted. ‘He wasn’t the only one either.
The little things try to wash your car if you stop for too long. Honestly, it’s
like being abroad. Some of them were going through bins.’ Her mother’s dismissive
attitude changed to confusion as Gwenhwyfar’s face flooded with distress. ‘But
darling, it’s nothing to worry about. Many people just can’t afford homes these
days.’
    ‘How come there were never any back home?’ Gwenhwyfar looked to her
father. The topic seemed to have put him off his food.
    ‘We lived in a rich part of Swansea, Gwen, away from all that,’ Eve
said. ‘It helped we were in the country. They cluster in the cities. Usually if
there were too many of them, or if they upset the locals, they got moved.’
    ‘Moved where?’
    Garan looked up to Eve, who shrugged.
    ‘To a sheltered community, I think, nearer Cardiff. There are lots
there. They help such people get back on their feet.’
    ‘Mobilisation Centres,’ Garan divulged. ‘Places where the homeless
and disabled can work for a living and integrate back into society.’ He leant
back in his chair, and turned his gaze out of the bare windows.
    ‘It’s the recession,’ Eve added, ‘it makes it hard for people to find
work. Besides, some of them don’t want to find work. They’re perfectly happy living off handouts. They’re lucky they get
that kind of support at all.’
    Gwenhwyfar abandoned her food and rubbed the brim of her glass with
her