Swords: 09 - The Sixth Book Of Lost Swords - Mindsword's Story by Fred Saberhagen Read Free Book Online Page B

the Crown Prince came to find the presence of the bandits, or former bandits, less ominous and worrisome. It was, after all, pleasant to be able to fall asleep knowing that his life and his son’s were guarded by sentinels of fanatical loyalty.
           The next day Murat was able to obtain food—to almost everyone’s surprise, he insisted on paying for it—from a village whose alarmed inhabitants were fortunate enough to enjoy a modest surplus. Murat intended to feed the former bandits, if he could, as long as they were with him, but beyond that he really felt no responsibility to them. After all, these men when in possession of their free will had been perfectly willing to kill him and his son. Nor was the Crown Prince willing to assume any responsibility, in his own mind, for what the current members of his armed escort might do after he eventually sent them away. Then they would be free men once more, and their conduct would be entirely up to them.
           By afternoon of the second day of his escorted journey, Murat started to find some amusement in the robbers’ continued adulation—they were often unintentionally entertaining, as drunken men or lunatics could sometimes be.
           Chuckling, he commented on this fact to his son, who worshipfully agreed.
           It was very fortunate, the Crown Prince thought to himself as they rode on, that he himself, instead of some raw youth—Carlo, for example, or almost anyone of Carlo’s age—had recovered the Sword of Glory. Much better for such dangerous power to repose in the hands of one like himself, an experienced man of the world, someone able to take such things in stride. In happier times he as Crown Prince had already received—perhaps, he thought, sometimes even deserved—his share of adulation. A man in his position learned to accept praise and devotion graciously, and not to allow such things to warp his judgment.
     
    * * *
     
           As the odd group progressed southward the landscape grew hour by hour less barren, rugged, and desolate. More farms and villages appeared, and the trail they were following turned into a real road on which moved other travelers. These unanimously gave Murat and his rough escort a wide berth.
           Near sunset of their third day on the road together, the Crown Prince and his retinue came upon a blind beggar sitting at the wayside, a pale abandoned-looking man, some fifty years of age to judge by appearances, who raised his thin voice in a moaning plea for alms. In the red evening light the beggar’s clothes were gray as a pilgrim’s, so worn and tattered that their material and original design were hard to discern. The wooden begging bowl at the wretch’s side had nothing in it, as Murat saw when he reined near to toss in a small coin.
           A grimy bandage covered the mendicant’s eyes. His beard and curly hair might have been shiny black, just touched with gray, had they not been dull with dirt.
           At the sounds of the coin clinking in his bowl, and of the hooves of a large party stopping, the beggar raised his sightless face and turned it from side to side, as if to hear better.
           “Thank you, Master,” croaked the beggar at last, hearing no more coins.
           “I have not given you very much.” Murat raised his head to glance ahead and behind along the almost deserted road. “And you seem to have chosen a spot where you can expect but little more.”
           Now words poured from the beggar rapidly; evidently he was eager to talk to anyone who’d listen. “You see before you, kind Master, a victim of malignant fate. A persecution almost beyond belief has toppled me from a position of great respect and brought me here.”
           In Murat’s experience, most mendicants had some heart-rending story to tell, and some of their tales were doubtless true. But here was an oddity to intrigue the curiosity of the Crown Prince: this