Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure by W A Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page A

member of the parliament of Toulouse, but he begs no one for money and we are noblesse ancienne.”
    “You are from the County of Toulouse?” I asked, surprised. Then I teased. “I have heard much of that region but never visited it. It is said to be rife with heretics.”
    Gaston snorted. “I have heard the same: I was ever being insulted for being a provincial at the schools. But the Cathars were destroyed centuries ago, and the Hugenots are all in Languedoc. Toulouse is just old and proud and has seen many emperors come and go. They govern as if the fools in Paris will not always exist.” He sighed. “To answer your question, our seigneurie has several mines and forges: that is where the money comes from.”
    “You mine gold?” Striker asked with a befuddled frown. “But…”
    “Nay,” Gaston said quickly. “Iron and coal, and my father does not own them, he is paid banalités, rents, by the men that do.”
    “Your father controls an iron mine and a forge? No wonder…”
    Theodore said thoughtfully.
    “Aye,” Gaston said with a shrug. “And our land is good for growing wheat. We are quite wealthy without the Emperor’s favor.”
    I regarded my matelot with the bemusement I always felt when he spoke of either his father or his heritage with such pride, but I could understand some of it now: his father was truly a powerful nobleman, not some fool relying on the King’s favor and the machinations of court as mine was. Gaston being disinherited was truly a great blow. He had once stood to gain far more than some farm fields and his father’s name and reputation.
    “I had not understood,” I said quietly in French. “You have lost far more than I could ever hope to gain.”
    Gaston shrugged and sighed. “I have not wished to think about it.
    I was unfit. That is the way of it. He has his other sons.” He frowned.
    “They must be men now.”
    I moved so I could embrace him.
    “I have come to resent losing my name and title most of all,” he said sadly. “I do not care about the money.”
    “I know,” I sighed. I found only confusion when thinking of my title.
    I had seen so many fools with titles over the years, and lived so long without the one I was born to, that I was tempted to say it held little meaning. But I found in my heart that the idea of being a lord held great meaning for me. Commoners were often sheep, and sheep were sheared and eaten. Though I did not wish to consider myself a wolf, having others consider me so was very useful and oft kept me alive.
    We sat in thought for a time, the others not choosing to disturb us even if Gaston’s revelations had given them cause to ask questions, until Pete suddenly remarked, “That Star There Be A Planet,” and pointed at the sky. “We Seen It Through The TellyScope.”
    I looked at the reddish dot in the sky with surprise and wonder.
    “Agnes’ telescope arrived?”
    “Aye. It Be A Little Thing.” He indicated a tube the circumference of his hands and perhaps a foot beyond the width of his shoulders.
    “If it weren’t so damn fragile it would be damn useful at sea,” Striker said. “During the day we could see to the Passage Fort from the roof: we could nearly see men’s faces enough to tell if they were smiling or frowning. Rucker says this one cannot be jostled, though, lest the lens move and then it won’t focus or some such thing.”
    Gaston nodded, his eyes still on the heavens. “Someone will solve that matter,” he murmured.
    “So what did that planet look like?” I asked Pete.
    “Like A Little Orange Ball With Lines. Agnes An’ Rucker Say The Little Dots About It Were Moons. Looked Like More Stars Ta Me.”
    “That would be Jupiter. If they cross the disk of the planet they are moons,” Gaston said.
    I still sat holding his hands and marveling that the reddish dot could be resolved into a ball with lines. “What color are the lines? And which way did they run?”
    Pete was delighted to tell me, and thus we spent