The Heirs of Hammerfell Read Online Free PDF Page B

of trained
    leroni in the Tower, there are never enough laran workers for our needs. Perhaps after your children are born, you could come to us for a year or two. . . ."
    The duke interrupted with anger, "My wife is no homeless orphan for you to offer her an apprenticeship! I can care for her appropriately without help from any of the Hasturs.
    She need serve no man other than myself."
    "I am sure of that," said Valentine diplomatically, "We are not merely asking you to give of yourself without recompense; the training you would receive there would benefit your family and all of your clan."
    Rascard saw that Erminie looked really disappointed. Could it be that she was willing to leave him for this "training," whatever it was? Feeling unnerved, he said brusquely, "My wife and the mother of my child shall not pass from under my roof; and there's an end to talking about it. Can I serve you in anything else, my lord and lady?"
    Valentine and Merelda, who knew better than to provoke their host, let the matter rest.
    "Perhaps you can indulge my curiosity," said Lord Valentine. "What of this blood feud with the people : of Storn? I have heard that it was raging even in my great-grandsire's time―"
    "And in mine," said Rascard.
    "Yet never have I known whence it came, or what began it. As I rode through these hills I saw Storn's men on the march, out for raiding, I suppose. Can you inform me, my lord Duke?"
    "I have heard several tales," Duke Rascard said, "but I can offer no guarantee that any one and no other is the true tale."
    Valentine Hastur laughed. "Fair enough," he said. "Tell me what you believe."
    "What I heard from my father was this," Rascard said, absentmindedly petting Jewel's head which was resting in his lap. "In his grandfather's time, when Regis the Fourth held the throne of the Hasturs at Hali, Conn, my great-grandsire, had contracted to marry a lady of the Alton kindred, and he had word that she had set forth from her home, with her baggage and horses, and three wagons containing her goods and her dowry. Weeks passed, yet no further word came, and the lady arrived not at Hammerfell. After forty days, the lady finally arrived, but with a message sent from Storn, that he had taken the bride and her dowry; but that the girl did not please him, so he was returning her to Hammerfell, and that my forebear had permission to marry her if he wished; but he would keep the dowry for his trouble in trying out the bride. And since the lady was pregnant with the son of Storn, he would thank them to send his son along sometime before his naming-feast, with an appropriate following."
    "I am not surprised that this resulted in blood feud," Lord Valentine said, and Rascard nodded.
    "It might even then have passed as the most unseemly of all jests," said Rascard, "but when the child was born―and they say he was the very image of Storn's elder son―my grandsire sent back the child and a bill for the wetnurse who carried him, and for the mule she rode. And that spring Storn sent armed men against Hammerfell, and war it has been ever since; when I was but a lad of fifteen, scarce proclaimed a man, Storn raiders killed my father, my two elder brothers, and my younger brother, a boy
    of nine years. The Storn kin have left me alone in the world, my lord, save for my dear wife and the child she bears. And I shall guard them with my life."
    "No man living could fault you for that," said Lord Valentine Hastur somberly, "surely not I; yet I would wish to see this feud mended before I die."
    "And I," said Rascard. "Despite all, I would have been willing to put aside my ill will to the Storns until they attacked my paxman and killed my son, I would have forgiven the deaths of my other kinsmen. But not now. I loved my son too dearly."
    "Perhaps your children may end this feud," said the Hastur-lord.
    "Perhaps it may be so. But it will not be soon; my son is yet unborn," said Duke Rascard.
    "The children Erminie bears―"
    Erminie