Fool's errand by Robin Hobb

Author:Robin Hobb
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780553582444
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2002-11-26T10:00:00+00:00

chapter XVI

CLAWS

The depredations of the Red Ship War took their heaviest tolls on the Coastal Duchies. Old fortunes were decimated, family lines failed, and once-proud holdings were reduced to ashy ruins and weedy courtyards. Yet in the wake of the war, just as seedlings sprout in the spring after a lightning fire, so too did many of the minor nobility find their fortunes swelling. Many of the humbler holdings had escaped the raiders’ attention. Flocks and crops survived, and what would once have seemed secondary properties, came to be seen as places of plenty. The lesser lords and ladies of these lands suddenly found themselves seen as desirable matches for the heirs of older but suddenly less wealthy family lines. Thus the widowed lord of the Bresinga holdings near Galeton took a much younger and wealthier bride from amongst the Earwood family of Lesser Tor in Buck. The Earwood family was an old and noble line that had dwindled in both standing and wealth. Yet in the years of the Red Ship War, their sheltered valley prospered and shared harvest with the devastated folk of the Bresinga holdings that bordered them. This kindness bore fruit for the Earwood family when Jaglea Earwood became Lady Bresinga. She bore her elderly lord an heir, Civil Bresinga, shortly before his death from a fever.

— SCRIBE DUVLEN, “A HISTORY OF THE EARWOOD LINE”

Lord Golden moved with the grace and certainty that is supposedly bone-bred in the nobility. Unerringly he led me to an elegant antechamber where his hostess and her son awaited him. Laurel was there, attired in a simple gown of soft cream trimmed with lace. She was deep in conversation with the Bresinga Huntsman. I thought that the gown did not suit her as well as her simple tunic and riding breeches had, for her tanned arms and face seemed to make the dainty lace at the collar and belled sleeves incongruous on her. Lady Bresinga was elaborately flounced and draped for dinner, the abundance of her garments swelling the proportions of her bust and hips. There were three other guests: a married couple and their daughter of about seventeen, obviously local gentry. All had been waiting for Lord Golden.

Their reaction when we entered was everything the Fool had claimed it would be. Lady Bresinga turned to greet her guest, smiling. Her eyes swept over him, widening with pleasure. “Our honored guest is here,” she announced. Lord Golden turned his head slightly to one side, tucking his chin in with an innocent air as if he were unaware of his own beauty. Laurel stared at him in frank admiration as Lady Bresinga introduced Lord Golden to Lord and Lady Grayling of Cotterhills and their daughter Sydel. Their names were unfamiliar but I seemed to recall Cotterhills as a tiny holding in the foothills of Farrow. Sydel’s cheeks grew pink and she appeared almost flustered at being included in Lord Golden’s bow, and after that, the young gentlewoman’s gaze appeared fixed on him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.