Kings and Honor by J Gordon Colford

Author:J Gordon Colford [Colford, J Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781657790766
Published: 2020-01-07T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“What a man in my position does with privileged

information is a testament to the measure of his honor.

He had better deal as faithfully as he would have others

do in his place.”

Attributed to Kaled Del Danaal in

The Chronicle of Kaled Del Danaal III,

as recorded by Steward Reid Elderson.

A dull ache settled between Bret’s shoulder blades as he hunched over the piles of books and scrolls strewn on the desk. He had taken reams of notes and the tip of the quill he was using had become soft and frayed. It blotted the page and rendered his script unreadable, so he finally snapped it in half in his frustration and searched for another. There were none to be found on the shelves or in any of the desk’s numerous cubbyholes. He was hesitant about searching the drawers, as this was not his private desk, but he was left with no choice.

Pushing his chair back, Bret began to go through the drawers. Most of them were empty, but some contained the odd trifle, small items left behind by some of the suite’s previous occupants. If he’d had the time he might have examined them out of idle curiosity and learned something of the former guests who had been installed here, but he was on an important quest and would not take the time. Finally, in a wide, shallow drawer at the top of the right side he spotted some quills, but the drawer was stuck and he couldn’t open it far enough to get his hand in to retrieve them.

“Dammit!” he hissed under his breath. He was tired and weary of reading through the books and scrolls, and his patience was running out. Pushing the chair completely out of the way, Bret knelt before the desk and jimmied the drawer in every way he could, but it was stuck fast. He peered into the open spaces between the drawer and the slot into which it fit, and could see that some papers had been shoved under the bottom panel, and that was what the drawer had fetched up on.

Not one to give up easily, Bret did everything he could to free the drawer. He jiggled, joggled, wiggled, and shook it, to no avail. He even tried to pull the paper out with the tip of his knife, but that didn’t work, either. Finally, in exasperation, he laid both hands on the lip of the drawer and pulled as hard as he could. There was a sound of paper tearing and the drawer pulled out of the slot. Bret lost his balance and swayed backward, catching himself before he fell. The quills and sundry other small items spewed across the floor.

“Hah!” he gloated as he collected the hard-earned quills. He picked up the articles that had fallen to the floor and placed them back in the drawer, then reached into the slot to remove the paper so the drawer would not stick again. Once the drawer was back in place and sliding easily out of its slot, he looked at the paper.

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