Within the Hollow Crown Read Online Free PDF Page A

crest of a Stag against a striped green and white silk backing.
    Gabriel was a much older man. He was primarily in charge of the castle and it’s guards. He trained them. In fact, he was Vye’s first sword instructor, before she left the Kingdom and trained with Tallatos. For as long as she had known him, he had looked sixty, with shoulder-length gray hair and a raspy voice. But Vye knew that even now, if you wanted a good sparring partner, he was your best option.
    “So,” Michael said as his bowl was filled with soup by a servant, “What happened?”
    “A close call is what happened,” Landos said. “Another close call.”
    “Is it an interesting story?” Michael asked.
    “It’s a familiar one,” Landos said. “Lord Rutherford went to visit Lord Endior sometime last week, presumably to discuss a new trade route.”
    “I thought you left an explicit order for him not to go on any more spontaneous diplomatic missions,” Vye said between spoonfuls of soup.
    “I did,” Michael said. “In fact, I think I left two identical orders.”
    “He’s going to keep getting us into trouble, Michael,” Gabriel said. He was the only one comfortable enough with the Count to call him by his first name. “He’s not going to listen until the worst happens.”
    “So,” Landos said, “When there, he happens to run into Marisa Endior…”
    “Big coincidence,” Vye said.
    “And he tries to woo her…”
    “Again,” Vye commented while grabbing an apple.
    “...And when things don’t go according to his plans, he grabs Lady Endior and drags her back to his Manor.”
    “I don’t like where this is going,” Michael said.
    “Halfway home, Rutherford has to take a piss, so he dismounts, and Marisa turns the horse around and returns home. Her father declares Lord Rutherford a menace…”
    “He is a menace,” Vye said.
    “And the rest you know,” Landos said, finally grabbing a bite of food.
    “This is not the last time he will get you into trouble,” Gabriel said.
    “His trouble comes too often for my taste,” Landos said.
    “Can’t you lock him up for being an idiot?” Vye asked.
    “The Barons would eat me alive if I try to remove his title,” Michael pointed out.
    “We have a naval outpost on the Island of Delinampora,” Landos said. “It could use a new Admiral.”
    “I can’t afford to lose the trade routes from Delinampora,” Michael said, “Which is the most likely outcome of putting Rutherford in charge of the naval base there.”
    “Just let me spend an hour in a room with him,” Vye said. “I think I know how to put an end to his untamed nature.”
    “I think you may be onto something, Lady Vye,” the Count said. Landos looked sideways at Michael. As High Lieutenant, he was essentially the executive officer of the entire County. If Michael were to lose his mind, it would be up to Landos to fix it.
    “Your Grace,” Landos said, “I don’t know how diplomatic it would be to let Lady Vye remove Rutherford’s balls.”
    “Never mind that,” Michael said, “But I’ve been inspired. I think I have a way to put a stop to our troublesome little baron.”
     
     

Chapter 5: The Demographically Challenged
     
    Four people ascended, like moonlit shadows, to the summit of Lunapera Mountain, the Crest of the Moon. The peak was a lonely gray island of stone amidst the pine green sea of the forest. On the sheer cliffside, at a particular outcropping, you could look up and feel as though you were communing alone with the Moon himself. You could sell tickets to this view.
    The Lunapera is not within the borders of the Kingdom of Rone, nor would the four people ascending it consider themselves citizens of that Kingdom . They were Turin. Naturalists from the Towers of Seneca had long ago declared that they were not technically a different race of people, not in the same way that a horse is a different race from a chicken. They just had a different language. And different customs. And