The Assassin King by Elizabeth Haydon

Author:Elizabeth Haydon [Haydon, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Rhapsody (Fictitious Character: Haydon), Anborn (Fictitious Character : Haydon), Epic, Fantasy Fiction, Achmed (Fictitious Character: Haydon), Achmed (Fictitious Character : Haydon), Ashe (Fictitious Character : Haydon), Dragons, Fantasy, American, General, Gwydion (Fictitious Character : Haydon), Rhapsody (Fictitious Character : Haydon), Fiction, Grunthor (Fictitious Character: Haydon), Grunthor (Fictitious Character : Haydon)
ISBN: 9780765344748
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2007-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

25

A she’s head was buzzing the next morning as if from the aftereffects of potent libation. After the first few hours of the headache, he began to rue refraining from imbibing the night before, knowing that even a hangover could not have caused his skull to throb more than the arrival of the dukes of Roland did.

He stood on the balcony, in his hand a cup of strong plantain tea with medicinal properties that his wife had often used to bring him out of the hard repose of dragon slumber, trying to focus his eyes on each carriage as it made its way up the well-traveled road that ran east—west in front of the Haguefort’s gates. Archers stood in the recently rebuilt guard towers, providing cover for the carriages, while the Lord Cymrian mused whether or not to give the signal to open fire on some of the occupants as they emerged from the bowels of the coaches.

The first of the dukes to arrive would never have drawn his fire, he noted, as Cedric Canderre stepped, with the assistance of his footman, out of his coach. In his own state of loss, Ashe felt tremendous empathy for the elderly duke, a gentleman and friend who had always lived hospitably and with grace, and while not the most admirable of husbands, had always been a loving and devoted father. To have witnessed the death of his only son and heir presumptive, Andrew, on these very grounds at the winter carnival that had taken the lives of so many could only be a soul-ripping reminder of that loss.

Ashe took a sip of the bad-tasting tea and winced. Had he been less distracted, he would have arranged for the meeting to take place at Highmeadow, whose halls and defenses were all but complete, and into which they would be moving any day. While the creature comforts had not yet been established in the new fortress, it was certainly furnished enough to have spared Cedric Canderre the pain he was undoubtedly undergoing as he slowly made his way up Haguefort’s cobbled entranceway. Alas, he thought, such diplomatic considerations are a thing of the past; it’s all I can do to keep my mind clear enough of rage to focus on the meeting at all.

At the opening of the gate Gwydion Navarne was standing, his hands behind his back. Ashe watched, gratified, as the newly invested young duke greeted Cedric Canderre warmly and took his arm, leading him into the keep. How like his father he looks, Ashe thought as Gwydion held the door. Perhaps there will still be hospitality within these walls, even in Rhapsody’s absence, after all. The thought and the sight cheered him a little; in the contentious discussions they were about to undertake, he was glad to have his namesake beside him, even if the new duke’s opinions were often discounted by the others because of his youth and inexperience.

Behind the carriage of the Duke of Canderre hovered two more, one directly on the road, the other jockeying to hold the position of last arrival behind it.

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