LITMIR.BIZ

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hogged mane. The beast plodded along on a lead-strap behind another rider who wore a dusty crimson robe. To the rear was a drooping figure on a third horse, with a lead attached to Snudge’s cantle-ring.

      ‘Mat?’ Snudge’s mouth felt like the inside of an old boot and his eyes seemed clogged with sand.

      The robed figure looked over its shoulder at him. ‘Ah. Finally awake? Very good.’ He called out to someone riding ahead. ‘Sir Gavlok, my master has come round.’

      Gavlok made some unintelligible reply. Snudge muttered to the novice, ‘What – what’s the hour? And where are we?’

      ‘This is Axebridge, a village along the River Blen some fifteen leagues above the capital. I have relatives here. It’s about the ninth hour of morning. We’ll stop soon for brief refreshment.’

      ‘Never have I had a worse hangover,’ Snudge whimpered. ‘I’m nearly blind with headache and perishing of thirst.’

      ‘I’ll make a remedy for you soon,’ Mat said cheerfully. ‘Alchymical studies have a practical side, thanks be to Saint Zeth. A concoction of strong ale, raw egg, garum, and ground pepper will quickly banish your blue devils, sir.’

      The party turned off the high street into a lane and proceeded to a prosperous-looking cottage where a large chestnut tree gave welcome shade from the hot sun. There Gavlok assisted Snudge to dismount while Vra-Mattis helped the three moaning armigers.

      ‘This is Mat’s cousin’s house,’ Gavlok said. ‘I’ll pay the goodwife well to prepare food for us, which we can eat when we’re back in the saddle. But first, we’ll fetch you and the lads that healing draft.’

      Leaving the stricken men sitting on the grass and drinking from skin waterbottles, the tall skinny knight and the bandylegged little novice went to the cottage door and spoke at length to someone inside.

      Valdos Grimstane, who at sixteen years of age was Snudge’s senior squire, said faintly, ‘I think I may die, Sir Deveron.’

      He was a grandson of Duke Tanaby Vanguard, and it was a mark of Conrig’s esteem that such a high-born youth had been assigned as armiger to the newly belted Royal Intelligencer. Valdos was pleasantly ugly and usually of a ruddy complexion, but at the moment his face was cheese-green and his eyes so bloodshot that their true color could hardly be discerned.

      ‘No, you won’t die, Val,’ Snudge assured him. ‘You’ll gather your wits as speedily as you can, for something has caused the High King to cancel our country holiday and summon us all back to the palace posthaste. I know not why.’

      ‘Bazekoy’s Biceps! You have no hint at all of what’s up?’

      ‘None. But I suspect it’s no trivial business.’

      ‘What a disappointment for you, sir, not to see your new manor house after all,’ said the junior armiger. A year younger than Valdos, his name was Wiltorig Baysdale. He was a native of the Southern Shore, a distant cousin of the Lord Treasurer, Duke Feribor Blackhorse, and uncommonly good-looking and tall for his age. He had curly blond hair, grey eyes, and an ingratiating manner that Snudge had found to be a bit cloying. But perhaps the lad was only overeager to please.

      ‘I daresay Buttonoaks will wait, Wil.’ Snudge sighed. ‘I’ve been assured that my steward is a very competent fellow…How do you feel?’

      ‘Seedy, sir. I’ve never been drunk before. It seemed great fun last night, but I’ve never had such a headache. I could swear that nails are being pounded into my skull.’

      ‘Ah, ye poor mite,’ came the mocking voice of Gavlok’s squire, Hanan Caprock, a burly youth who came from the wild mountain lands above Beorbrook Hold. ‘Imagine that – your first hangover! Must be a quiet life down in Blackhorse Duchy…when the local peers aren’t murdering each other or plotting treason against the Sovereign. I suppose you’ll be a virgin, too, eh?’

      Wil’s face went crimson. His retort was surprisingly cool. ‘That’s none of your business. And I advise you to stifle your crude remarks in future, or you’ll regret it.’

      Hanan’s hooded dark eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, I will, will I, pretty one?’

      ‘That’s enough!’ Snudge said testily. ‘Hanan, you’ve a mouth on you like a potboy. Apologize at once, or Sir Gavlok will hear about this. I won’t have my men baited.’

      The older squire climbed to his feet and bowed elaborately to Wiltorig. ‘I ask your pardon, Baysdale. And I apologize to you, also, Sir Deveron. I’m a highland ass who never learnt fine manners! So why don’t I trot off and see if my master can use me for donkey-work?’ He slouched toward the rear of the cottage, where Gavlok and Vra-Mattis had disappeared along with the woman of the house.

      ‘I’m surprised Sir Gavlok tolerates such a lout,’ Wiltorig remarked with disdain.

      ‘His choice of squire is not your concern.’ Snudge stood up and eased his sore joints. ‘And so long as Sir Gavlok rides with us, you’ll be civil to Hanan, even under provocation. Is that clear?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Snudge was weary of the armigers’ callow chatter and felt a need to organize his own befuddled thoughts. ‘I’m going to stretch my legs in yonder orchard. There’s probably a well behind the house. You two water the horses. They’re very thirsty.’

      ‘How do you know that, sir?’ Wiltorig asked with studied innocence.

      Snudge was taken aback. The lad’s tone seemed oddly pointed. ‘Any competent horseman can tell!’ he snapped. ‘Obey me.’

      He cursed himself for the possibly revealing slip of the tongue as he moved away into a grove of cherry trees that were already setting fruit. One of his lesser gifts was the ability to coerce and control horses, and he was also uncannily aware of the animals’ physical needs and afflictions. When he was a young boy, the talent had brought him special treatment in the royal stables from grateful grooms. Eventually, it resulted in his first fateful encounter with Conrig Wincantor, which had forever changed his life.

      But why had the armiger Wiltorig posed his question so oddly? Was Snudge being overly imaginative – or had someone primed the boy to watch for evidence of wild talent?

       Duke Feribor Blackhorse?

      Snudge felt a queasy stirring in his belly that had nothing to do with his hangover. The formidable Lord Treasurer was a childhood friend of King Conrig, one of his closest advisers, and in a perfect position to have put forward his young relative as an armiger candidate. Snudge, wrapped up in the excitement of his investiture and the unexpected holiday, had thought nothing of the coincidence until this moment.

      His physical discomfort forgotten, he thought about it now. And berated himself for never having put together certain facts about the duke.

      Feribor, accused by persistent rumor – which the king flatly refused to countenance – of having poisoned his first wife, as well as orchestrating the death of his feckless older brother Shiantil so that he might inherit the Blackhorse dukedom…

      Feribor, who now stood first in the line of succession to the Crown of Sovereignty, should Conrig’s offspring be debarred…

      Feribor, suspected of colluding with the scheming Lords of the Southern Shore, and completely exonerated of any wrongdoing after a too-hasty investigation in which the Royal Intelligencer played no part…

      Feribor, Lord Treasurer, whose tax-gathering irregularities came under scrutiny when other members of the Privy Council pressed the issue, only to be forgiven his ‘mistakes’ by a Sovereign who refused to believe his old Heart Companion would cheat the Crown…

      Feribor, nephew to the deposed Royal Alchymist and convicted traitor Kilian Blackhorse, who might have been told by his uncle of the hidden Trove of Darasilo – and Snudge’s role in revealing its existence to Conrig…

      Feribor, who might have long suspected that the shadowy young royal

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