The Cold Commands by Morgan Richard K

Author:Morgan, Richard K. [Morgan, Richard K.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345523037
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2011-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

jel’s band slipped away from the fire in dribs and drabs, to bedrolls and tents laid out across the ancient paving. Ringil watched them lay themselves down to sleep like ghosts in the gloom—phantoms drifting to their graves at dawn, after a hard night of undead revelry. The last couple to go were a man and woman huddled up together and sharing a depleted flask of wine. Finally, the man responded to the woman’s repeated tugging at his sleeve and significant glances, rose clumsily and unsteadily to his feet, and pulled his partner up at his side.

“G’night then, gents,” he slurred.

“Sleep well, Cortin.” Hjel didn’t look up from beneath the brim of his hat. “You, too, Enith.”

The woman smiled in the low flicker of the firelight. “Will you play us to our blankets, Hjel?”

Hjel nodded assent, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. His fingers plucked up a thin cascade of notes from the mandolin, and the woman led her partner away with lightly sprung steps to the tune. The man let her tug him along, glanced back once and winked at Ringil. Then the two of them were gone, off into the darkness.

The mandolin’s song coasted to a halt. The brim tipped up, and Hjel’s eyes gleamed with light thrown back from the coals in the firebed.

“What are you looking at?” Ringil asked him softly.

“I’m not sure.” One hand lifted from the mandolin fretboard, palm opened outward. “A mirror, perhaps? A choice I might have made?”

Ringil felt something climb his spine on icy talons and settle like a demon familiar under the angle of his jaw. He hunched his shoulders against the touch, painted his face with a smile.

“Yeah, you made about as much sense as this the last time.”

“Very likely.” The sorcerer played a pair of chords and let them fade. Across the twist in the heated air above the fire, his eyes still gleamed, but Ringil got the impression they were no longer looking at him. “Did I tell you, last time—next time, whichever it is—did I tell you that my ancestors were once kings?”

“It came up, yes. To be frank, our minds were on other things.”

Hjel either ignored the flirt or didn’t hear it. “And I had already—will already have—told you this story. There’s logic in that, I suppose, though I have never seen the Margins play this particular trick before. And I don’t imagine it presages anything very good.”

The hat brim tipped down, hooded the eyes for a long moment. When it rose again, Ringil thought he could see the trace of a smile in the shadows beneath.

“It’s a pretty good scam, right? A ragged band of entertainers and camp followers claiming homage as the thousand-year descendants of the royal court in hiding. That old Bloodline-in-Exile thing. A wandering minstrel and conjuror, in truth the dispossessed, rightful king. Nice work if you can get it.”

Ringil shrugged. “Well. Now you come to mention it.”

“The Margins help, of course. They ebb and flow like a tide across the marsh, wash the ruins under for hours or months at a time, spit them back up again.

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