Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher Read Free Book Online Page A

Rudi.”
    â€œI am grateful, Captain. I would put my thanks into the making of a sword for you, but it seems you have had the help of greater skills than mine.”
    â€œIf this sword breaks I will come to you for my next.”
    He watched as I slid the blade back into its sheath.
    â€œIf it breaks I doubt if you will need another. But I do not think it will break.”
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    I paid my respects to Edmund’s mother, she who had been Lady to Prince Stephen, in her new house. Her elder son, Charles, had won booty from the campaign against Petersfield, and had shared with the other Captains in the ransom money paid by Romsey for its army and its dead Prince’s son. These things had enabled him to take her from the tiny house in Salt Street and put her in a place more fitting to her rank.
    It was still not large, smaller than my home before we moved to the palace, but she was not a woman who cared for show. She had no great wit and it was clear she had never had beauty, but her two sons and Jenny, her daughter, loved her dearly. She did not often rebuke them but when she did the rebuke was heeded. She greeted me warmly, embracing me. Jenny said:
    â€œYou must show him more respect, Mother, now that he is a Captain.”
    Her voice had an edge of mockery which was familiar to me and could still unsettle me. She was a little less thin in the face, I thought, a little more womanly in figure. She was more than a year my senior. I said, trying to match her banter:
    â€œIt is not she but you who should show respect.”
    She dropped a curtsy to me. “I beg your pardon, sire. And if you could find time to school me in manners, I would promise to pay close attention.”
    â€œLeave him alone, Jenny,” her mother said. “He is not back two seconds before you are provoking him again. And last summer when he was not here we had mopings and gloom and constant wonderings about where Luke was, and was all well with him.”
    To my surprise she blushed while making her outraged denials. I was as embarrassed, if not more so, and hastened to find a different topic. I talked of the peddler, as the whole city was doing, and of the supposed wonders of Klan Gothlen in the land of the Wilsh. It was public news now that Peter was sending an embassy there and had hired the peddler to go with them and be their guide and herald.
    Edmund’s mother said: “I suppose there is a reason for it, but I cannot see what. Our own land and city are good enough, I would think, without going to look for others. But men are restless creatures.”
    Jenny said: “I would go. Gladly!”
    â€œGo where?” her mother asked.
    â€œTo the peddler’s city, if I could.”
    â€œIt is a day of wonders,” I said. “A dwarf who would be a warrior, and a girl who wants to go hunting for strange cities.”
    â€œAnd Luke,” she said, “who never changes—being neither dwarf nor girl but a Captain of the army. Being strong and brave and wise and without the tiniest bit of imagination. Lucky Luke.”
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    We sat, Peter and I, with Ann in her parlor. This was not the room my mother had used but another. It had much less of ornament and frippery and the pictures on the walls were all to do with her religion. One showed this god of theirs, a thin, melancholy man with a golden saucer behind his head, blessing his followers; while in another his body hung twisted on a wooden cross. They were a gloomy lot altogether, these Christians, and I thought it strange that Ann herself should be so warm a person.
    We talked like any family group of family matters. Peter spoke of the child that was to be born. He was full of plans for him—he was certain it would be a boy—and talked almost as though he were already with us. Ann and he wrangled, though gently, about his rearing. To Peter, of course, it was necessary, indeed