The Fox by Sherwood Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

liked.
    Tall, blond, competent, Nallan was smirking now. He clearly loved conveying these orders from the royal heir.
    “Did the Sierlaef say why?”
    “Treachery,” Nallan said.
    “Then it will be done,” Buck stated, not asking why a charge of treachery from one of the royal family didn’t require a trial. It was obvious that once again the Sierlaef was sidestepping the rules for his own purposes as he’d done many times, though it had never before cost someone’s life.
    But he’s going to be the next king.
    Nallan smirked again. “I’m to stay until I see his body.”
    Fury flared hot and bright; however, Buck had learned during their boyhood academy days not to express anything at all around the heir or his most trusted spy. “Then take your gear down to the Runners’ rooms and settle in. I’ll give the necessary orders.”
    He waited until he’d seen Nallan cross the small courtyard to the Runners’ space adjacent the barracks; then, he ran down to the arms court, where he found his younger brother Landred—renamed Cherry-Stripe his first week at the academy—busy with the arms master.
    Cherry-Stripe was surprised to see Buck dressed formally— best riding boots, his gray war coat buttoned to the high collar, sashed at the waist, the long skirts gathering dust as he crossed the heat-shimmering stones. In this weather?
    Cherry-Stripe cast a puzzled glance at his brother’s tight-lipped, brow-furrowed face. Buck leaned up against a hitching post and crossed his arms, so Cherry-Stripe turned back to the waiting arms master and finished his bout.
    When it was done Buck made the old academy “behind the barracks” sign with a briefly turned thumb, so Cherry-Stripe said to the arms master, “I’m going to get something to eat, and then I’ll be over to look at the two-year-olds.”
    The man flicked his fingers to his heart and walked to the other end of the court to observe the off-patrol Riders galloping past a post and hacking at it with swords.
    The brothers ran through the drifting dust to an older part of the castle, moldering and mossy, and clambered up to their favorite perch from which they could watch, unseen, through ancient arrow slits.
    “Nallan is here.” Buck grimaced in disgust as he undid the wooden buttons of his coat, eased out of it, and laid it carefully beside him. Air ruffled over his sweat-damp shirt, briefly cooling him, and he sighed. “Orders. From him. We’re to kill Vedrid on sight.”
    Cherry-Stripe gasped. “Vedrid? Why?”
    “Treachery. Supposedly. Nallan stays until it’s done. So he wants an eyewitness. Can’t imagine what Vedrid’s done. Or how to move against him. He being a friend, almost kin.”
    “But Vedrid’s already here.”
    “What?”
    “Mran told me at breakfast,” Cherry-Stripe explained, referring to his betrothed, little Mran Cassad. Like all the Cassads she was small and rat-faced. Cherry-Stripe had grown up with her, and they were allies as well as betrothed. She always knew everything going on in and around the castle. “Fnor told her. Sheep-house,” he added with a roll of the eyes.
    Buck snorted a laugh. He’d forgotten that his own intended wife, Fnor Sindan-An, had begun a hot romance with Vedrid during the Sierlaef’s long stay a couple of years past. Apparently time and distance hadn’t diminished that romance, which wouldn’t matter to him one way or another: Fnor and he had made a pact when they reached the age of interest that they would not sleep with one another until they were married, so they’d have something to look forward to. Until then they expected one another to dally with whomever they liked—and get in plenty of practice.
    What was far more serious was the fact that Vedrid was related to a goodly number of the older Marlo-Vayir armsmen and Runners; there had been several marriages between the liege folk of various Tlen clans and the Marlo-Vayirs.
    “We better go talk to him,” Buck stated, picking up his