The Prophecy Read Online Free PDF Page B

together.
    The farmer was laughing. “Your bard?”
    “I suppose he must be,” said Perryn ruefully, climbing down from the cart. “I’d better follow them. I thank you, sir, for all you’ve done.”
    “My pleasure,” said the farmer. “And don’t worry about following them. You’ll be able to find your bard in the town lockup anytime in the next month, or I miss my guess. Take care, lad.”
    Perryn bowed and set off to find the jail.

But the bard was held in durance, by evil men, and Prince Perryndon was forced to labor mightily to free him.
     

4
     
    “ SO THEN I LOOKED IN HIS BAGS AND —”
    “—swindling me, the toad, right from—”
    “Silence!” roared the justice, for the fourth time.
    “But it—”
    “I—”
    “Excuse me,” said Perryn, trying to wiggle through the crowd in the public hall. “Excuse me, please.” No one budged.
    “Bailiff, throw them both in a cell!”
    Silence fell around the justice’s chair.
    “Ah, that’s better,” said the justice. “Let me see if I’ve managed to understand all this. You, sir, are a tavern keeper, who employed the bard Lysander to entertain your customers.”
    Perryn saw a three-inch gap between two broad backs and lunged for it. “Excuse me.”
    “Employed, hah,” the bard responded. “A pallet on the floor, scraps from the tables, and permission, permission! to keep the coins people offered, while I brought in crowds of—”
    “I took you in, fed you, housed you, and you repaid me with theft, you—”
    “Bailiff!”
    “Excuse me.” Perryn struggled onward. The crowd was getting thicker, and the noise level was rising again.
    “And you, Lysander, feeling that the tavern keeper was underpaying you, decided to increase your wages without his knowledge?”
    “It wasn’t theft,” said the bard. “This miserly rogue offered me all I could eat, if I honored his filthy hovel with my playing.”
    “Filthy! Hovel!”
    “Silence!”
    “Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.”
    “I’ve heard enough,” the justice declared. “Tavern keeper, we will return the food the bard was taking. Next time, be more careful of the character of those you employ. And as for you, master bard, there can be no doubt that you planned to steal from the tavern keeper.”
    Perryn wedged himself between two more bodies and squirmed. He couldn’t wait while the bard served a long sentence. His father would surely find him, and all his plans would come to nothing. Disastrous for him, and maybe for Idris, too.
    “You have also caused a public brawl and disturbed the king’s peace,” the justice continued. “Therefore, I sentence you to ninety days in lockup. If you want to take any of our jail food with you when you go, feel free.”
    “But you can’t do that!” Perryn burst through the crowd at last. “I need him.”
    The sudden silence was even more absolute than the hush produced by the justice’s previous threat. Everyone stared at him. Perryn belatedly remembered that interrupting the proceedings of a court was illegal. The impulse to run seized him. Weak willed. He forced himself to meet the justice’s gaze firmly.
    “I beg your pardon?” the justice said.
    “The boy is my brother,” said the bard quickly. “Dependent on my care. Just look at the state he’s in! He’ll starve if I’m in jail. It was for him I took the food.”
    “Is that true, lad?” asked the justice.
    “Ah, well, no,” said Perryn.
    “You ungrateful cur!” exclaimed the bard. “After all the years I’ve fed you, clothed you—”
    “Silence!”
    “But I do need him,” said Perryn. “If I have to wait here ninety days…well, it will be too late. Please, sir, is there any way you could reduce his sentence?”
    “I could impose a fine instead.” The justice scratched his chin. “It should be…hmm. Ninety coppers. Do you have ninety coppers, lad?”
    “No.”
    “No money at all?” The justice eyed his patched, dusty clothing, and Perryn blushed.
    “I was