The Hawk And His Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

passed. It was as if she had been asleep for years, drowsing through the days. It was time to wake.
    Perhaps for the last time. One last autumn—I can feel it—but not here in this place I’ve come to love so well, but in Hearne at the center of the duchies. The center of Tormay. At least, what man thinks is the center. For there is no center. Only the four stillpoints. The silence of the depths of the sea. The silence of the wind in an empty sky. The silence of a motionless flame. And the silence of the earth.
    My beloved earth. I could sink into this loam and sleep forever. Down below root and leaf, below the spine of the mountain range and the stretch of the plains. I could sleep away the centuries instead of refashioning myself into one Levoreth after another. But this one—poor girl—this Levoreth is the last one I shall be. I can feel it in my bones. I’ve grown weary.
    The moonlight painted the forest silver, etched with shadows. Levoreth let her thoughts drift out across the yard, through the fields and into the trees. She felt a fox trot by, his tongue lolling over sharp teeth, thoughts of chickens in his head. The oaks were mumbling about root rot and the band of noisy crows that had settled into the east forest fringes. A trader slept by the coals of his campfire, far down the woods road, snoring under his cart. His old horse dozed nearby, but her thought woke the animal and it nickered in question, scenting the air for her. She quieted the horse, and it contentedly went back to sleep.
    I’m tired. Tired, irritable, and forgetful. I’ve forgotten so many things. How odd. I can’t remember ever having been in the duchy of Mizra.
    She turned from the window and gazed around her room. Fresh flowers in the vase next to her bed. A smile crossed her face. Yora looked after her jealously, as if she were the daughter the old woman had never had.
    Sometimes I can barely remember who I am.
    In the morning, Levoreth walked down the stairs and found the duchess knitting in the sitting room that looked out into the garden. A cat slept in her lap, paws wrapped around a ball of yarn.
    “I’ll go with you and Uncle to Hearne,” said Levoreth.
    Her aunt glanced up. The cat woke and jumped down. It rubbed its head against Levoreth’s ankles. She scratched behind the cat’s ears and it purred in adoration.
    “Besides,” said Levoreth, “who’ll keep you company when Uncle is off talking horses with Botrell and every other half-witted noble?”
    “You’ll never get married with that attitude.” But her aunt smiled. “You only have to meet this duke of Mizra fellow. For all we know, he might be missing his teeth.”
    The cat nipped Levoreth’s finger out of affection and then strolled away. It flopped down in a pool of sunlight and promptly fell asleep.
    “To be honest, Levoreth,” said the duchess, “I was beginning to think you’d never leave this place—hiding away here like a hermit with no one at all around. Why, you’ve been here for two years and never once come back to Andolan. The only time we see you is when Hennen drags me out here so he can inspect new colts.”
    “I was tired of Andolan,” said Levoreth. She turned away.
    “Anyway,” said her aunt, not hearing her. “I’ll tell Hennen. He’ll be pleased.”

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    MURDER BY NIGHT
     
    The night lay over the valley. A blanket of darkness was draped over the hills and ravines and stands of pine, over the sleeping houses of the hamlet nestled below the ford. Smoke drifted up from their chimneys. A stream glimmered its way through the valley, down from the mountains and into the larger Rennet valley and the River Rennet itself, which ran for leagues until it reached the far-off city of Hearne and the sea. The air smelled of pine and the scent of heather wafting down from the plain of Scarpe, which stretched away from the top of the rise to the north.
    But there was another smell as well. Only the most sensitive of human noses could