Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service by Stephen Hunt Read Free Book Online Page A

somehow, he still couldn’t. What Carter had once felt for her was a wound he had cauterised, bound and would never uncover again, its ugliness a reminder of how he had been a big enough fool for taking it in the first place.
    Willow drew the chestnut-coloured horse to a halt in front of him, its nostrils flaring with the excitement of the canter. Corn-fed, of course, the best you could breed and as fast as lightning. Carter’s father kept one old nag in a rented stall in the new town’s stables, a gelding called Icabob , for the times when he needed to visit parishioners outside the town. Blind in one eye and well past its prime. Carter had learnt to ride on it but the other children had called out jokes when they saw him swaying on the elderly nag. He’d rather walk or hitch a lift with the regular message run to the library than be seen riding Icabob, now.
    Willow raised an eyebrow. ‘The Master of the Codex hasn’t cancelled your apprenticeship yet, then?’
    ‘I’d need to burn a few books to get booted out,’ said Carter, knowing the very idea would be sacrilege to Willow. ‘Hey, maybe that’s an idea!’
    ‘If you value learning so little,’ said Willow, rising to the bait, ‘maybe you could take off to the north and join one of the nomadic hordes beyond the mountains? Of course, you’d have to leave off burning an atlas or two to actually find the steppes.’
    ‘Oh, I can navigate well enough with a compass and the stars,’ smiled Carter. ‘It’d be a novel experience anyway, walking across an acre of land that doesn’t belong to your family. Nice afternoon for a bit of leisurely riding. Or are you off to count the full fuel stills over those hills?’
    ‘I’m off,’ said Willow, a little irritated, ‘to see why one of our land agents thinks a family should be evicted from a farm close to the forest. I’ve heard rumours that the father’s been ill out there and that’s why they’ve fallen behind with the rent. If I left such decisions to you men , then they’d be out on their ear without a second thought to what’s really happening on the farm.’
    ‘Well, there are always more tenants where they came from.’
    Willow scowled. ‘With an attitude like that, if you do get tossed out of the librarian’s guild, you should travel to Hawkland Park and ask my father for a job as a land agent. He’d be glad to have you.’
    ‘What and end up working for Duncan? That’s why I’m getting out of Northhaven, one way or another.’
    ‘And you don’t think I’m worthy enough to inherit the estate on my own terms?’
    ‘You wanted that job; you should have let me fillet Duncan with a sabre this morning.’
    Willow snorted. ‘Really? Do you think so? Good day to you then, Mister Carnehan.’ She put the spur into her mare and the horse galloped away.
    Carter exhaled slowly, trying to suppress his anger. That hadn’t gone quite as well as he had hoped . Oh well . Willow was her brother’s sister, that much was certain. Every month, Duncan Landor became more like his grasping self-important father. It was no wonder the heir to Hawkland Park wanted Adella so intensely. Duncan’s gaze had rested on something he didn’t have, couldn’t have, and it itched him like a bad shirt. Adella was about the only reason for Carter to stay in the prefecture, or was it the need to deny her to Duncan? Damned if he really knew. Or maybe he did, and he didn’t want to recognise the answer. Sadly, Adella had shown no interest in leaving Northhaven. But that was Adella for you. Home and hearth close to their family and the familiar was what she yearned for, not new sights out in the infinite. Carter knew exactly how matters would develop after he left the prefecture. Duncan would sweep Adella off her feet and everything would be fine for a year or two. But then some rich southern girl would show up, a match ‘worthy’ of a Landor, and poor Adella would be tossed aside like a rusty nail, bitter and broken as