The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) Read Online Free PDF Page B

shining on her mother’s cheek, a tear for Martis, for which she kissed her.
     
    She also realized something else: her father would give just about anything he had to go on this mission himself. But he couldn’t. He was the baron, responsible for the defense of everyone living by the river from Ninneburky all the way up to the foothills of the mountains. So he had to stay.
     
    It slowly began to dawn on Ellayne that her father was a great man, worthy of the honor that the king had bestowed on him.
     

     
    Sergeant Kadmel came at a run. “The lads’ll be here presently, my lord,” he said, “just as soon as they can saddle up.” It was an innovation introduced by Roshay Bault that the militia should be mounted whenever they had to go any distance. It would be some time yet before Obann produced horsemen who could fight as cavalry, but they’d at least made a start.
     
    Kadmel was a stout, grey man who’d been a soldier all his life. Ellayne was glad that he would command the patrol. He listened gravely as the baron explained the mission to him.
     
    “If they’re on foot, we ought to catch up to them soon,” he said. “But, sir, your daughter—are you sure?”
     
    “I think it’s necessary,” Roshay said, and then he told Ellayne to fetch Wytt. “If he won’t go, you don’t go,” he added.
     
    Wytt lived under the back porch, having dispossessed a large rat. He heard people clumping around in the house overhead and didn’t want to come out.
     
    “You have to, Wytt!” She told him what had happened and why she needed him. He came out, then, with a sharp stick and a red glint in his eye. Once he’d killed a full-sized man with such a stick; Ellayne remembered that vividly. She held him closely in her arms as she brought him back to the parlor. The sergeant’s eyes went wide.
     
    “What’s that?” he said.
     
    “His name is Wytt. He’ll track for us,” Ellayne said. “You can trust him.”
     
    “It’s true,” Roshay added.
     
    Then the men arrived, eleven of them in shirts of mail, on horseback, armed with spears, and with horses for Herger and the sergeant. Ellayne would have to sit behind a rider, and Wytt, for the time being, would have to go into her sack. He didn’t like it, but he’d had to do it many times before.
     
    “Bring that boy back to us, Kadmel—and Martis, if he’s still alive,” Roshay said. “And don’t let my daughter out of your sight.”
     
    “Aye, my lord.”
     
    Ellayne kissed her father and mother. Vannett stroked her hair and said, “Don’t forget your prayers.” Once upon a time, Ellayne thought, her mother would have been in a panic over anything like this. Certainly she would never have allowed her daughter to go out with the militia.
     
    “I’ll be good, Mother,” Ellayne said.
     
    She went out the front door with the sergeant. It was just about the exact time she usually went to bed.
     

 
    CHAPTER 5
    Jack’s Prayer
     
    As the patrol rode out of Ninneburky, a letter was on its way from Obann to Silvertown. The rider who carried it and his companion had safe-conduct passes signed by Merffin Mord and lies invented by him, in case anyone should stop them, but the letter itself was signed by all the members of the council. The riders made good time and would arrive in Silvertown the next day. They were sworn not to open the letter, but if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to read it. For the letter was in a code to which only Goryk Gillow had the key.
     
    Gallgoid had no copy of this letter, but he was well aware of its content. He could have intercepted it, but had decided to let it go through. As the two riders made camp for the night, Gallgoid sat at his desk, contemplating the message and talking to himself. As an added precaution, he spoke to himself in Wallekki.
     
    “So,” he mused, “will Goryk Gillow come to Obann to be acclaimed First Prester by the council? Is he as big a fool as that?”
     
    Mord had invited