King's Peace 02 - The King's Name by Jo Walton

Author:Jo Walton [Walton, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2011-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

--13-- Lady of Wisdom, guide thou my thoughts, aid thou my strategy, let my words fall clear on the air from my lips to listening hearts. Let me be lucid. Let me be heard.

--From "Charm for Rhetoric" The ala doctor, ap Darel, woke me. He was arguing with X Govien outside the tent about whether it was too early to wake me or not. "If it's an emergency you can call her," Govien was insisting, loudly, right outside my tent. "It's not an emergency, but I've never seen anything like it before, and I wish Sulien would come and see," ap Darel said firmly. I yawned, stretched, sat up, and poked my head out. I obviously wasn't going to get any more sleep mis morning. "Oh, Sulien," Govien said in obvious relief. I had slept longer than usual. The sun was well up, and visible, too, in a blue sky. "Anything urgent?" I asked. Both men shook their heads. "Then is there any chance of hot water?" I asked. Govien frowned anxiously. "If you really need some, I expect so. The cooks have the fires lit." "I'll use the stream," I said, pulling myself to my feet. "I see you, ap Darel. If it isn't urgent I'll speak to you when I'm clean." I walked down to the stream. The cooks' assistants had marked off a place upstream for drawing drinking water. So many had come down to bathe that it seemed as if a whole ala was in the water together. Even Cynrig had shaken off his modesty for once and was splashing about with the others. I plunged in to join them. It was a warm morning, but the water was as icy as if it had come straight from the twin peaks of fire and ice on the island on top of the world. Rigg had been there, I thought. Emrys had. I knew then that however vast the world might be I would never leave the island where I was born. Then Masarn splashed me and I whirled around to splash back. I went back up the slope goose-pimpled and needing to rub myself down, but with a much clearer head. Ap Darel was still waiting outside my tent. "I can show you here, quickly, I think," he said. He took my arm and frowned at the scratch I'd taken yesterday at the battle. "Yes. Look at your arm." I looked. The scratch was red-rimmed and slightly swollen. I looked at him in sudden alarm. "Poison?" I asked. "Is there much of it?" "No poison I recognize," he said. "And ineffective for one. But it must be something like poison. It seems as if everyone who was hurt yesterday has a wound that looks angry and is healing more slowly than it should." My scratch hurt, now I was thinking about it. I frowned down at my arm. Normally I would expect something like that to have scabbed over already. My arms bore the light scars

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.