The Rebel of Rhada Read Online Free PDF

time when the blood-sickness was said to have fallen from the sky), and even the citadel grounds were deserted except for the Vykan guardsmen patrolling in their oiled leather capes and hoods. So Torquas kept to his rooms, annoyed by his companions and neglected by his wife.
    Mariana had promised to call on him, and she had not. She hadn’t sent the actors to amuse him as she had promised to do, either. She had not even come to question his physicians about his state of health--which was very bad, no matter what the stupid medics said.
    It was even possible, Torquas thought grimly, that he might be close to death. He considered the masses of grieving Nyori, the yellow-draped monuments, the hovering starships and warmen with reversed weapons in his funeral train. There would be dirges for days, and the women of the household would cut their lovelocks to burn on the star king’s bier. Oh, it would be a fine sight! He remembered his father’s funeral: far and away the most impressive pageant he could ever remember seeing. Only, if the funeral were his own, he would of course not see it--unless the priest-Navigators were right and he would be carried into Paradise in a great crystal starship from which he could see all the wonders of the Universe (of which he was undoubted king). Including, he supposed, his own great funeral.
    Still, it might possibly be that he was suffering from something not quite fatal, in which case he would have to reprimand Mariana for her neglect as soon as he felt able.
    He lay on his curtained bed, listening to the comings and goings of the two dozen courtiers who never left him. He was still rather morbidly considering his own death, but he concluded that it was very hard for anyone, even the Galacton, to come to grips with such a notion at the age of twelve years. Perhaps, when he became old enough to lead troops in battle, when he could actually see men die, he would be better able to cope with abstract death. Though when that remarkable day might come, he really did not know.
    When his father, The Magnifico, was still alive, he remembered, he had at least been trained in the use of arms. But since the great king’s departure for Paradise in the great crystal starship (that was really very hard to believe), there seemed no time for war games. Mariana insisted it was not fitting for the King of the Universe to spend his time in the armory swinging a wooden sword.
    Mariana was a Vyk herself, and a relative--even a distant cousin--should understand that Torquas, as head of the family, should be a warrior. How else would he hold his lands, the hundreds of worlds so distant they could not be seen in Earth’s sky even on the clearest of nights?
    He sighed heavily and stirred on the furs that covered the Imperial bed.
    He thought about his sister, the Princess Royal Ariane. He was very cross with Ariane, too. She had not been to see him in weeks. When he asked for her, Mariana and Landro said that she was still on Vyka, queening it on her estates. How dare Ariane go off-world without the Galacton’s permission? What was the point of being King of the Universe if you couldn’t even control your own sister?
    He closed his eyes and listened to the people on the other side of the curtains. Avaric, the fat Altairi heir who was supposed to be Lord Chamberlain, was playing at Stars and Comets with Lady Constans, the governess. Privately, Torquas referred to Constans as Lady No because it was she who was in charge of his court education, which seemed to consist mainly of things the Galacton should not do. The pages were arguing about the ownership of a hunting peregrine, and something had happened to make Orrin, the Imperial equerry, cry. It sounded as though one of the nine Gentlemen Pensioners was comforting him. Torquas frowned petulantly. Who ever heard of a Galacton, a Commander of the Starfleets, with a five-year-old child for equerry? All because Orrin was bond-cousin to Landro, and Mariana insisted