World Without End Read Online Free PDF

was jealous, although he would never admit it. He longed to be a knight, bold and strong, and fight for the king as his father did; and it dismayed him when he turned out to be hopeless at things such as archery.
    Ralph found a stone and crushed the hare's skull, putting it out of its misery.
    Merthin knelt beside the two girls and Hop. The dog was not breathing. Caris gently drew the arrow out of its neck and handed it to Merthin. There was no gush of blood: Hop was dead.
    For a moment no one spoke. In the silence, they heard a man shout.
    Merthin sprang to his feet, heart thudding. He heard another shout, a different voice: there was more than one person. Both sounded aggressive and angry. Some kind of fight was going on. He was terrified, and so were the others. As they stood frozen, listening, they heard another sound, the noise made by a man running headlong through woodland, snapping fallen branches, flattening saplings, trampling dead leaves.
    He was coming their way.
    Caris spoke first. 'The bush,' she said, pointing to a big cluster of evergreen shrubs - probably the home of the hare Ralph had shot, Merthin thought. A moment later she was flat on her belly, crawling into the thicket. Gwenda followed, cradling the body of Hop. Ralph picked up the dead hare and joined them. Merthin was on his knees when he realized that they had left a telltale arrow sticking out of the tree trunk. He dashed across the clearing, pulled it out, ran back, and dived under the bush.
    They heard the man breathing before they saw him. He was panting hard as he ran, drawing in ragged lungfuls of air in a way that suggested he was almost done in. The shouts were coming from his pursuers, calling to each other: 'This way - over here!' Merthin recalled that Caris had said they were not far from the road. Was the fleeing man a traveler who had been set upon by thieves?
    A moment later he burst into the clearing.
    He was a knight in his early twenties, with both a sword and a long dagger attached to his belt. He was well dressed, in a leather traveling tunic and high boots with turned-over tops. He stumbled and fell, rolled over, got up, then stood with his back to the oak tree, gasping for breath, and drew his weapons.
    Merthin glanced at his playmates. Caris was white with fear, biting her lip. Gwenda was hugging the corpse of her dog as if that made her feel safer. Ralph looked scared, too, but he was not too frightened to pull the arrow out of the hare's rump and stuff the dead animal down the front of his tunic.
    For a moment the knight seemed to stare at the bush, and Merthin felt, with terror, that he must have seen the hiding children. Or perhaps he had noticed broken branches and crushed leaves where they had pushed through the foliage. Out of the corner of his eye, Merthin saw Ralph notch an arrow to the bow.
    Then the pursuers arrived. They were two men-at-arms, strongly built and thuggish-looking, carrying drawn swords. They wore distinctive two-colored tunics, the left side yellow and the right green. One had a surcoat of cheap brown wool, the other a grubby black cloak. All three men paused, catching their breath. Merthin was sure he was about to see the knight hacked to death, and he suffered a shameful impulse to burst into tears. Then, suddenly, the knight reversed his sword and offered it, hilt first, in a gesture of surrender.
    The older man-at-arms, in the black cloak, stepped forward and reached out with his left hand. Warily, he took the proffered sword, handed it to his partner, then accepted the knight's dagger. Then he said: 'It's not your weapons I want, Thomas Langley.'
    'You know me, but I don't know you,' said Thomas. If he was feeling any fear, he had it well under control. 'By your coats, you must be the queen's men.'
    The older man put the point of his sword to Thomas's throat and pushed him up against the tree. 'You've got a letter.'
    'Instructions from the earl to the sheriff on the subject of taxes. You're welcome