Book 3 - All Darkness Met by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

giving you trouble. How come there's no wolves or lions in these parts anymore? They all went to Ipopotam for the season?"
    "My friend," said Prataxis, "you strip it to its bones, but it remains a philosophical point."
    Blackfang regarded the scholar narrowly, not sure he hadn't been mocked. His old soldier's anti-intellectual stance was a point of pride.
    "We can't get away from it," said Ragnarson. "But the quiet may help us think. The subject at hand, my friends. What's happening?"
    Valther spat his blade of grass. While searching for another, he replied, "People are getting nervous. The only thing I know, that's concrete, is that they're worried because Fiana has locked herself up at Karak Strabger. If she dies..."
    "I know. Another civil war."
    "Can't you get her to come back?"
    "Not till she's recovered." Bragi examined each face. Did they suspect?
    He wished the damned baby would hurry up and the whole damned mess would get done with.
    His thoughts slipped away to the night she had told him.
    They had been lying on the couch in his office, on one of those rare occasions when they had the chance to be together. As he had let his hand drift lightly down her sleek stomach, he had asked, "You been eating too much of that baclava? You're putting on a little...."
    He had never been a smooth talker, so he wasn't surprised by her tears. Then she whispered, "It's not fat. Darling.... I'm pregnant."
    "Oh, shit." A swarm of panic-mice raged round inside him. What the hell would he do? What would Elana say? She was suspicious enough already....
    "I thought.... Doctor Wachtel said you couldn't have any more. After Carolan you were supposed to be sterile."
    "Wachtel was wrong. I'm sorry." She'd pulled herself against him as if trying to crawl inside.
    "But.... Well.... Why didn't you tell me?" She had been well along. Only skilled dress had concealed it.
    "At first, I didn't believe it. I thought it was something else. Then I didn't want you to worry."
    Well, yes, she had saved him that, till then. Since, he'd done nothing but worry.
    Too many people could get hurt: Elana, himself, his children, Fiana, and Ravelin-if the scandal became a cause celebre. Hespent a lot of time cursing himself for his own stupidity. And a little admitting that his major objection was having gotten caught. He'd probably go right on bedding her if he got through this on the cheap.
    Before it showed enough to cause talk, Fiana had taken trusted servants and Gjerdrum and had moved to Karak Strabger, at Baxendala, where Ragnarson had won the battle Kavelin celebrated on Victory Day. Her plea of mental exhaustion wasn't that difficult to believe. Her reign had been hard, with seldom a moment's relief.
    Horns alerted him to the present.
    "Game's afoot," Kildragon observed, rising.
    "Go ahead," Bragi said. "Think I'll just lay around here and loaf."
    Haaken, Reskird, Turran, and Valther were habituated to action. They went. They would get more relaxation from the hunt.
    "And you, Derel?"
    "Are you joking? Fat, old, and lazy as I am? Besides, I never did see any point to hounding some animal through the woods, and maybe breaking my neck."
    "Gives you a feeling of omnipotence. You're a god for a minute. 'Course, sometimes you get taken down a peg if the game gives you the slip or runs you up a tree." He chuckled. "Damned hard to be dignified when you're hanging on a branch with a mad boar trying to grab a bite of your ass. Makes you reflect. And you figure out that what Haaken said about us being top critter isn't always right."
    "Can you manage this charade another two months?"
    "Eh?"
    "My calculations say the child will arrive next month. She'll need another month to make herself presentable...."
    Ragnarson's eyes became hard and cold.
    "Too," said Prataxis, who hadn't the sense to be intimidated, because in Hellin Daimie scholars could make outrageous, libelous remarks without suffering reprisals, "there's the chance, however remote, that she'll die in