The Hero King Read Online Free PDF Page B

take a soak in the tub, Joy had to count for herself. That raised an erection, so I knew that there was still some life in me.
    “I was worried abut that,” I told her. I didn’t mention that I was still very tender down there. Getting the extra family jewels in position had hurt like hell.
    “Damn well better not mess up a good thing,” Joy said. She climbed into the tub with me. It’s big enough to hold three or four people without any crowding, though we’ve never tried it with more than the two of us. It was just sunset, so the water tank up on top of the castle still had plenty of hot water in it. The water was almost too hot.
    We made love soaking wet, on the bedroom floor so we wouldn’t get the bed sloppy. After the first bout, another bath, and a sensuous session with the bath towels, we did a rematch on the bed. By the time we finished that, I was almost asleep and trying to fight it off. I do have some sense of manners.
    “I’ve got something to tell you,” Joy said, snuggling closer against me.
    I mumbled something that didn’t take the effort of words.
    “We’re going to have a baby.”
    That woke me all the way. I sat straight up, dumping her head from my shoulder. Okay, I had seen a lot of magic, but … “You know that fast? We just got done.”
    And Joy started laughing hysterically. It was several minutes before she calmed down enough to inform me that my elevator wasn’t going all the way to the penthouse. She had suspected that she was pregnant before I headed into the Mist. Now she was sure.
    Finally, we got to sleep.
    It was about one-thirty in the morning when Aaron came from Basil with the news I had been expecting.

3
The Crypt and the Crown
    “About ten minutes ago,” Aaron said when Joy and I had pulled on robes and called him into the bedroom. “Quietly. He never regained consciousness. I came straight here.”
    Joy and I got dressed and ready to cross back to Castle Basil. I was in full regalia. I hadn’t even needed Lesh’s reminder to know that it would be expected. Joy and I led quite a procession. Aaron, Lesh, Harkane, and Timon went along, as did Jaffa and Rodi, our new pages.
    The scene in the great hall of Castle Basil didn’t look like the middle of the night. There were kegs of beer being tapped, and there was plenty of cold food sitting on the table. People would eat. People had to eat, no matter what. And there were a lot of people about, standing around, looking glum. Pregel had been King of Varay for more than a century. Except for Parthet, there wasn’t anyone in the kingdom who could remember a time when he wasn’t king.
    When Joy and I entered the great hall, a lot of eyes turned our way and the soft conversations died away. We didn’t linger. A guard told me that the king hadn’t been brought down from his room yet, so Joy and I headed that way while the rest of our people stayed in the great hall.
    Mother, Parthet, and Kardeen were in the bedroom with Pregel. The catafalque on which Grandfather would rest during the vigil had been brought in, but the king hadn’t been moved onto it yet for the journey down to the chapel—the royal shrine to the Great Earth Mother.
    I knew what the procedure would be, in a general way. Baron Kardeen had warned me what to expect one time before when Grandfather had seemed to be in particularly precarious condition. The rituals would be much the same as they had been for my father. I would be the chief mourner this time, since I was Grandfather’s heir—whether I was ready for the job or not. The vigil would last until dawn. Then we would have a formal procession down to the crypt. Grandfather would be placed into his niche. That had been completed while I was out on the Mist. Before we left the burial chamber, there would be a brief ceremony investing me as King of Varay. It wouldn’t be a fancy coronation, just a simple thing with the sword of state, the one Pregel had used when he named me Hero of Varay after Dad