The King's Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

herself.
    “But, love, if Jorey—”
    “There are weeks between now and the first chance he could have to see her. There isn’t a rush.”
    He took a step back into the room before he knew he’d done it. Clara put the pipe stem back in her mouth, drawing gently. Smoke seeped out of her nostrils like she was some ancient dragon hidden in a woman’s flesh. When she spoke, her voice was light, conversational, but her eyes were locked on his.
    “As I recall, I wasn’t the first girl you ever took to bed,” she said. “I believe you knew exactly what you were about when my bride’s night came.”
    “She’s a woman,” he said. “It’s not the same.”
    “I suppose it isn’t,” Clara said, a note of melancholy stealing into her voice. “Still, we’re all round-heeled sometimes. I would have fallen back for you months before you made me honest, and we both remember that.”
    Dawson’s body began to stir without his will.
    “You’re trying to distract me.”
    “It’s working,” Clara said. “Indiscreet and unlucky doesn’t make her a bad person. Or a bad wife. Give it time, and let me see what I can learn of her when we’re back in Camnipol. Lord Skestinin might make a very fine ally if Jorey were to lift up his fallen daughter. And really, dear, they may be in love.”
    She held out her hand, guiding him down to sit beside her. Her skin wasn’t as smooth as it had been two decades and four children before, but it was still as soft. The amusement in her eyes called forth a softness in his own heart. He could feel his outrage fading. He plucked the pipe from her mouth, leaned forward, and kissed her gently, his mouth filling with her smoke. When he drew back, she was smiling.
    “As long as she’s not unfaithful,” Dawson said with a sigh. “I won’t have someone in the family being unfaithful.”
    A cloud seemed to pass over Clara’s eyes, a moment’s darkness but nothing more.
    “When the time comes,” she said. “We can worry when the time comes.”

Captain Marcus Wester
     
    I
    t was a week past his thirty-ninth name day, and Marcus squatted at the alley’s mouth, waiting. A soft rain fell on the nightdark streets, beading on the waxed wool of his cloak. Yardem stood in the shadows behind him, unseen but present. In the house across the narrow square, a shape passed in front of the window—a man peering out into the darkness. A less experienced man might have stepped back, but Wester knew how to keep from being seen. The man in the window retreated. The tapping of raindrops against stone was the only sound.
    “It’s not as if I can tell her what to do,” Marcus said.
    “No, sir.”
    “She’s a grown woman. Well, she’s almost a grown woman. She’s not a child, certainly.”
    “It’s an awkward age, sir,” Yardem agreed.
    “She wants control over her life. Autonomy. The problem is that she didn’t have any her whole life, and then had all of it at once. She had free rein with this bank for months. Long enough to see that she could do it well. After getting a taste for it, I don’t see how she turns her back.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Marcus sighed. His breath barely misted. It was a warm spring. He tapped his fingertips against his sword’s pommel. Annoyance and concern gnawed at him like rats in the grain house walls.
    “I could talk to her,” he said at last. “I could tell her that she’s got to be patient. Give the situation time to change on its own. Could she hear that, d’you think?”
    For a moment, the rain was the only reply.
    “Did you want me to answer that?” the Tralgu asked.
    “I asked it, didn’t I?”
    “Could have been a rhetorical point.”
    Across the square, a thin line of light marked an opening door. Marcus went still for a few seconds, but the door closed again without opening fully. He eased his grip on his sword.
    “No, I really meant it,” he said. “She’s my employer, but she’s also… Cithrin. If you’ve got a suggestion here, I’m