Dawn of Man (Thanos Book 1) by Thomas A. Watson Read Free Book Online Page B

back food,” he said, grinning.
    Ahnon lowered his head. “I will obey, your majesty,” he vowed.
    Vilarius grinned at Theobald at the door. “You old dog. I still can’t sneak out of my room, can I?”
    “You can sneak out anytime you want, but I’m never far away as you well know,” Theobald said, walking over. The queen looked at the door then to Theobald. He saw her glance at the door. “Your sho-ka lady-in-waiting is outside,” he told her, answering the unasked question.
    Eira grabbed the medallion on her neck. “I was feeling left out,” she said, smiling. A small woman walked in, wrapped in a silk gown that reached the floor with long, black hair pulled back into a tassel. “Akene, you too? I think we have enough guardians here,” she said as the woman seemingly glided across the floor.
    “You are my sire,” Akene said in a soft voice.
    Eira looked at her husband. “I think we’re safe,” she said, kissing his cheek.
    “Never doubted that,” he said then looked at Ahnon. “What are you doing?”
    “Reading,” Ahnon said, holding up the book in his hand.
    “Out loud, to a one-month-old baby?” Vilarius asked.
    Nodding, “It seems Jedek doesn’t like me reading to myself,” Ahnon told him.
    “He’s just a baby. He doesn’t know,” Vilarius said.
    Ahnon just looked at him. “He woke up the second I stopped.”
    The king and queen looked in the crib, and sure enough, Jedek had both eyes open, chewing on his fist. “He’s just hungry,” the queen said, picking Jedek up.
    Feeling a little offended, “The nurse left twenty minutes ago,” Ahnon told her.
    “What?” the queen asked. “Ahnon, it’s just a few hours until dawn,” she told him.
    “Four hours and twenty minutes till dawn, but an infant has to feed every three hours, four at the most,” he told her.
    The king leaned over, looking Ahnon in the face, “You wake the wet nurse up in the night every three hours to feed him?” he asked, astounded.
    “Yes,” Ahnon answered, not believing Vilarius asked.
    Vilarius straightened, looking at his wife. Eira just smiled at him. “He just needed us to make the baby. It seems he has the rest under control,” she told Vilarius, making him laugh. “I think you may be working poor Phobie too much though,” the queen told Ahnon.
    “No, she is eating well and is not having a problem,” he assured the queen. They wheeled their heads in unison, locking Ahnon in dumbfounded gazes. “What? I can’t do it, and the queen has many other duties, so I can’t wake her up at night to do it.” He looked at Akene. “Besides, Akene would start trying to beat me down if I tried waking you every three hours,” he noted.
    “There would be no ‘try,’” Akene assured him.
    With a small cold smile, Ahnon narrowed his eyes at her. “You need to grow up a little before you play in my arena,” he told her. She was about to retort when Theobald laid a hand on her arm. She looked up at Theobald, and he was shaking his head.
    Akene took the hint but chided, “I’m surprised you haven’t tested the milk from the wet nurse before your sire.”
    “Don’t have to. It’s not tainted,” he said as the queen played with Jedek, and that remark got her attention.
    “Excuse me?” the queen asked.
    Ahnon looked up at her face. “There is a village in Aztan where they have a drug a woman can eat and pass through her milk to kill a child,” he told her. “I heard about it and went to check it out. The poison is quite good actually. It acts real fast on the young but not the old. They have a chance to develop tolerance to it.”
    “That’s atrocious!” the queen gasped, pulling Jedek to her chest.
    “There isn’t much I’ve found in the three kingdoms that doesn’t fall into atrocious,” Ahnon told her.
    “Has it been used here in the five kingdoms?” Vilarius asked.
    Ahnon nodded. “Once that I found out about, on a duke in Racor. His son was going to be married to one of the