Six Heirs by Pierre Grimbert Read Free Book Online

frustrated to have expended such efforts in vain. The woman was simply selfish, he decided, amused at the same time by his own bad faith. No other woman, no matter how insensitive, would have left him searching for a bed like this.
    “Sleeping” with a harlot was out of the question. His days of such debauchery had certainly come and gone, even if he still had some friends in the Three-Steps Guild.
    Barle had surely locked down the caravan, and it was better for his health to sleep out under the stars than to wake up Barle, who was getting surlier with age. That left the inns, but Reyan knew that he had spent enough terces for the night. No, he had another idea in mind.
    Despite their slight disagreements, Mess wouldn’t refuse his cousin some hospitality for the night. Especially if he could be made to recall that his house was, after all, their house, inherited in equal parts from their grandmother. Under this battering rain, he wanted just once to be recognized as a Kercyan. He wanted to be recognized as anything at all.
    He stopped at a crossroad. Was it left or straight? Despite having grown up in Lorelia, he wasn’t completely sure which way to go. Truth be told, he tried to take a shortcut, dipping off into the narrow alleyways of the old neighborhoods, and maybe he had overestimated his knowledge of the largest city in the known world.
    Out of instinct, he went straight and was rewarded with the sight of the Cheesemakers’ courtyard. The old family home wasn’t very far, on the Money Changer’s street, after the Small-Horse courtyard on his left.
    A tremendous flash streaked across the sky, and thunder boomed shortly after. Reyan hurried his step.
    Finally, he drew close to the building. It was certainly large, but ancient, very ancient. His great-great-grandfather, whose name he carried, had acquired the house more than a century ago, and it was already old in that time. For the young actor, it symbolized the fall of the Kercyan family, a story his parents had repeated over and over throughout his childhood. But tonight it represented, more than anything else, a roof over his head and an inviting bed.
    The tricky part was going to be getting in without “disturbing” Mess, who wouldn’t hesitate to turn him out, and Reyan had had enough doors slammed in his face for the night. So he would simply skip asking his cousin’s permission to stay in his own house.
    All he had to do was use the same entrance he had always used to sneak out without his grandmother knowing, to visit the brothels, seedy taverns, or other fine establishments of the Lorelien nightlife. Yes, at one time, he truly was depraved.
    He hoisted himself onto the wall above the interior courtyard, accessible from Firebrand Street. In his time, their dog Baron guarded this courtyard, and Reyan had to remember to offer a treat to buy Baron’s silence. Now, anyone could enter; he was a bit annoyed by Mess’s carelessness, though it made things easier for him.
    The hardest part was to walk, as on a tightrope, the whole length of the wall, which rose higher until it joined the common room’s little terrace. Some metallic spikes and miniature gargoyles were embedded in the top to discourage attempts of this type, but they typically did not present any true obstacles. But today it had rained, and the rock was slippery.
    Reyan had fallen only once, one day when, on top of his habitual intoxication, he had chewed the dried roots of some plant imported from the Lower Kingdoms. He woke up a little before dawn, laid out on the cobblestones with Baron licking his face, and he’d had just enough time to slip into his room before his grandmother discovered him. He had never again smoked, breathed, or ingested any dubious plant or powder, no matter what its origins.
    The darkness was illuminated by a lightning strike and he ducked, letting out a curse in the thunder. He could notlet himself get picked up by the watchmen; he would have a difficult time