The Malmillard Codex Read Online Free PDF

intriguing
shadows in the wisps of cold breeze that crept through the window's
slotted shutters. Frague fumbled with a key, then flung open the
door with the air of a conjurer presenting a dazzling trick.
    The room was small. It contained only a low
broad shelf on the far wall, piled with a feather bed and a covey
of blankets and pillows; above the bed was another window,
shuttered just as the one in the hallway. A rock fireplace occupied
the wall to their left, doubtless the end wall of the building. To
one side of the fireplace was a small alcove containing a bowl and
pitcher on a stand. A candlestick of polished pewter, replete with
a fresh fat candle, rested on the low mantelpiece beside a thick
pottery jar with three dark red autumn roses, overblown and far
past their prime. Two low chairs stood before the cheerful fire
that crackled and muttered secrets to itself.
    "Those flowers cannot stay. Take them with
you, please. And that window over the bed, Master Frague," said
Madryn as she stood in the doorway, with a nod towards the shutters
that creaked in the wind, "what's on the other side?"
    "Oh, never you fear, milady. There's naught
out there but the forest," was the soothing reply. "Naught but
trees and such. This part of the inn was added on in my old dad's
day, when we needed more storage. I thought as how you might like
it better here, being quiet and all, away from the bar and the
other rooms. There be nothing but barrels of ale and side of bacon
and such like in the other rooms." The burly innkeeper waddled over
to the mantel and scooped up the flowers, pot and all, into one
meaty hand.
    "My thanks, Master Frague," said Madryn as
she entered the room at last. Valerik watched in astonishment as
she made a wide berth around the innkeeper and his burden of
blooms.
    Frague gave a nod for answer and shut the
door on his way out. They could hear his heavy body stamping down
the hallway away from their room.
    Madryn sniffed. "Cider turned to vinegar,"
she identified, and then grimaced. Valerik could smell nothing but
the vanished roses. "Still, that's far better than those damned
flowers. I don't think this room has been used for much of anything
for some time, do you? Definitely not for sleeping, at any rate. I
suppose our host didn't want us to wake his other guests with our
noisy carryings on." A crooked smile crossed her face, was gone in
an instant. "It's warm and dry, at any rate; neither of which we'd
be, if we were out in that."
    A draft swirled under the ill-fitting door.
Valerik watched the shutter over the bed rattle and shake, and
heard the one in the hallway give reply. The storm was gaining
intensity.
    He flung his boots down before the fire, set
the saddlebag on a chair and pulled another chair in front of the
door. Even as he did so, Madryn was climbing onto the bed shelf to
unlatch the window shutter.
    "Fresh nails and new boards for this, and
that right recently. But there're bars behind it—Damn it!—rusty and
loose, thank the gods."
    Valerik looked to see the cause of her
curse. She was shaking a finger that showed a thin streak of
blood.
    "Caught it on a nail," she said as she
climbed back down from the bed. "Val, see if you can get one of
those bars loose, if you please?"
    Valerik climbed up in his turn, opened wide
the shutters and seized a bar in both hands. With a series of soft
grunts, he pulled first one, then another, then a third completely
out of the old dry wood into which they were set. Then he carefully
reinserted them into their shattered holes, so it looked to the
casual observer that they were still firmly in place."
    "You're quite obviously a mind reader," was
Madryn's comment as he clambered down. "I'll take the first watch.
You get some sleep."
    Valerik opened his mouth to argue, but it
turned into a yawn instead. He gave into it, stretching his long
arms out to the side.
    "Yes, we're both tired, but I think you need
sleep more than I just now," Madryn said as if he'd