The Hidden Coronet Read Online Free PDF

but if anyone asks me, mind, they were stolen. I never saw you or want to know anything about what you do with them.”
    Galen opened the bundle. It contained dark clothes, a few small silver discs on a chain, and some papers.
    “They may not fit you,” she warned.
    He looked up. “I’ll take a chance. We’ll leave now. We need to get there in time.”
    “But what about food? I have to thank you, and the boy looks famished.”
    “The boy always looks famished,” he snapped, going out. They heard him limping up the stairs.
    Majella turned to Raffi. The morning light showed the wrinkles in her skin, the graying hair. “What happened?” she asked, fascinated. “He looks worn out. What was in here?”
    He knew better than to say too much. “A sort of . . . energy. Probably left over from some relic. Galen said the incarnations and we prayed. It just faded out.”
    He was poor at lying. She looked at him closely. “I see. And now, what does he want these clothes for? If it’s for what I think, then he’s crazy! He’ll never get away with it!”
    “The Makers will help us,” Raffi muttered.
    “If he’s killed,” she said, “and you’re on your own, come back. I’ll hide you.”
    Astonished, he looked at her.
    She glanced away. “My lad used to look a bit like you. When he was young.”
    Galen shouldered his way in, the pack in his arms. He dumped the peddler’s empty tray on the table. “Burn that.”
    “Don’t worry.” She pushed a small sacking roll at Raffi. “That’s food. Eat it in the cart. And thank you for coming here, keeper. Now we can make something of the place.”
    He looked at her. “Did your son know about this haunting?”
    “Not from me. The men may have said something. Now, are you certain you want to go back to the fair?”
    Galen did up the straps of the pack. “Certain.”
    “Keeper—”
    He looked up. She was watching him anxiously.
    “I don’t ask. But if there’s . . .” She shook her head. “I mean, you have weapons, powers. I don’t understand them. But I have only one son, and all I ask is that he’s not hurt.”
    Galen looked at her in surprise. Then he said, “Mistress, you have great faith. Far more than you think.”

5
    Be public. Be brusque. Let the criminal choke slowly.
    If the people feel a thrill they are ashamed of, so much the better.
    WP6/489: Notes for the
Guidance of Executioners

    E VERYONE WAS WAITING.
    Shoving his way through the crowd, Raffi could feel the tension. Today the fair was full, crammed to bursting, and the noise was intolerable—loud talk, forced laughter, intense bargaining—as if people tried to drown out the fear inside themselves or argue it away. Music seemed sharper in the cold air. He was lightheaded with it all, his own terror a chill down his spine. Even the animals, sheep and marsets and boshorns, bleated and fidgeted and racked their stalls with restless energy, hooves chipping the frozen floor into tiny drifts of snow that the wind gusted into corners.
    Out in the center of the solid lake the gallows waited too, black and gaunt. Around them stood a ring of armed Watchmen, faces muffled against the icy wind. One of them, he prayed, must be Galen.
    They had separated outside the checkpoints, and Raffi had come in first with the pack—easy enough, as the crush had been fierce. Were they all so keen to watch people die? he thought in disgust. Or was it that the Watch would notice anyone who stayed away?
    Already the front row of the crowd was pressing against the ropes, finding good places. Sellers of sausages and ale and hot cakes were doing a fast trade. Raffi chewed his thumbnail, anxious. Had Galen gotten in? Or had he been arrested already? He narrowed his eyes against the sleety wind and tried to see, but each Watchman was tall and dark and he could feel nothing from them. They all had crossbows too. Where would Galen have gotten one?
    If the keeper was captured, then it was up to him. He squashed that thought