Shaman's Crossing by Hobb Robin Read Free Book Online Page A

borderlands.
    “Do you?” Sergeant Duril was disdainful of my soft sentiment. “I feel sorrier for the ones left behind in the city, to continue being scum the rest of their lives. Look at them, Nevare. The good god decrees for every man what he is to do. But those down there, they scoffed at their duty, and ignored the skills of their fathers. Now the king offers them a second chance. When they left Old Thares, they were prisoners and criminals. If they weren’t caught and hanged, they’d probably be killed by their fellows, or live out their lives like rats in a wall. But King Troven has sent them away from all that. They’ll walk a long hard way, to be sure, but it’s a new life that awaits them in the east. By the time they get there, they’ll have built some muscle and endurance. They’ll work on the King’s road for a year or so, pushing it across the Plains, and then they’ll have earned the right to their freedom and two acres of land. Not bad wages for a couple of years of toiling. King Troven’s given them all a new chance to be better than they were, to own land of their own and to live a clean life, to follow in their fathers’ trades as they should have, with their old crimes forgotten. You feel sorry for them? What about the ones who refuse the king’s mercy, and end up with the chopping block taking their thieving hands off, or living in debtors’ prison with their wives and little ones alongside them? Those are the ones I pity, the ones too stupid to see the opportunity our king offers them. No. I don’t pity those men down there. They walk a hard road, and no mistake, but it’s a better road than the one they originally chose for themselves.”
    I looked down at the ragged line of chained men and wondered how many truly felt it had been their decision to choose this course. And what of the women and children in the wagons? Had they had a choice at all? I might have pondered longer if Duril had not distracted me with the terse word “Messenger!”
    I lifted my eyes and looked toward the east. The river snaked off into the distance, and the river road followed its winding course beside it. Passenger coaches, freight wagons, and the post traveled that road. Ordinary mail traveled in wagons for the most part; letters to soldiers from their families and sweethearts in the west and their replies made up the most of it. But King Troven’s couriers traveled that road as well, bearing important dispatches between the far outposts and the king’s capital in Old Thares to the west. Part of my father’s duty to his king as a landed noble was to maintain a relay station and the change of horses for the messengers. Often the dispatch riders were invited up to my father’s manor for the evening after they had passed on their messages, for my father enjoyed being kept up to date on events at the frontier, and the messengers were glad of his generous hospitality in the harsh land. I hoped we would have company for the evening meal; it always enlivened the conversation.
    Along the river road, a man and horse were coming at a gallop. A thin line of dust hung in the still air behind them, and the horse was running heavily in a way that spoke more of spurs and quirt than willing effort. Even at our distance, I could see the billowing of the rider’s short yellow cape that marked him as the king’s courier and notified every citizen of the duty to speed him on his way.
    The watcher at the relay station below us had spotted the oncoming rider. I heard the clanging of the bell, and in the next moment the inhabitants of the station sprang into action. One ran into the stable, to emerge almost immediately leading a long-legged horse wearing a tiny courier’s saddle. He held the fresh mount at the ready while another man dashed out from the station bearing a water skin and a packet of food for the rider. A fresh rider emerged, his face already swathed against the dust, his short bright yellow cape flapping in