The Champion (II): Blood and Gold by David Pilling

Author:David Pilling [Pilling, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2021-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

I woke to find the chamber dark and cold and Pegasus gone. For a time she had lain next to me, one white arm draped over my chest. I had seldom known such peace and contentment, certainly not since leaving my homeland.

Such moments flicker past. The fire was low in the hearth, so I got up and tended it myself, without calling for a page. As the sparks flew, my thoughts roved. At first, they mulled over the past hour, for obvious reasons, and filled my head with pleasant memory.

At last the image of my lover’s body melted away, replaced by her words.

“When you are fit, the king demands your service in Scotland. You will be sent to the land of Galloway in the West. It is crawling with rebels.”

“So I must kill Scots,” I said. “The lord king will use me as a blunt instrument, to slay and slay until I am slain.”

“You are a born cynic, Pascal,” she replied. “If you wished for a different life, you should have gone into the church.”

She was right, as usual. Fighting men, who live and die by the sword, have no cause for complaint. I had survived my first venture into Scotland, just, and now must go again. The words of my sacred vow of knighthood came back to me:

“Once I have undertaken an enterprise, I will never shrink back or turn aside from it…”

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.