The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley Read Free Book Online Page A

suppose you are still
    pleading ill health and dining peacefully with Teka? But supper I may have alone
    in my rooms. Will you come?”
    “Pleading ill health indeed,” she said. “Do you really want me to have a dizzy
    moment and drop a full goblet of wine in the lap of the esteemed guest at my
    right—or left? I’m less likely to cause civil war if I stay away.”
    “Pleading ill health indeed,” she said. “Do you really want me to have a dizzy
    moment and drop a full goblet of wine in the lap of the esteemed guest at my
    right—or left? I’m less likely to cause civil war if I stay away.”
    “Of course, if you’ll shut up long enough for me to accept.” She grinned at him.
    He looked at her, feeling a twitch of surprise; in her smile for the first time he
    saw that which was going to trouble his sleep very soon; something very unlike
    the friendship they’d enjoyed all their lives thus far; something that would raise
    the barrier between them much faster than anything else could; the barrier that
    thus far Aerin alone saw growing.

    “What’s wrong?” she said; some of the old familiarity still worked, and she saw
    the shadow pass over his face, although she had no clue to what caused it.
    “Nothing. I’ll see you tonight, then.”
    She laughed when she saw the place settings for their supper: gold. The golden
    goblets were fishes standing on their tails, their open mouths waiting for the wine
    to be poured; the plates were encircled by leaping golden deer, the head of each
    bowed over the quarters of the one before, and their flying tails made a scalloped
    edge; the spoons and knives were golden birds, their long tails forming handles.
    “Highly unbreakable. I can still spill the wine.”
    “We’ll have to make do.”
    “Where in Damar did you get these?”
    Something like a flush crept up his face. “Four settings of the stuff was one of
    my coming-of-age gifts; it’s from a town in the west known for its metalwork. I
    only just brought it back, this trip.” It had been given him for his bride, the town’s
    chief had told him.
    Aerin looked at him, trying to decide about the flush; he was brown to begin
    with, and copper-colored from sunburn, and it was hard to tell. “It must have
    been a long and gaudy ceremony, and they covered you with glory you don’t feel
    you’ve earned.”
    Tor smiled. “Near enough.”
    She didn’t spill anything that evening, and she and Tor reminded each other of
    the most embarrassing childhood moments they could think of, and laughed.
    Galanna and Perlith’s wedding was not mentioned once.
    “Do you remember,” she said, “when I was very young, almost a baby still, and
    you were first learning to handle a sword, how you used to show me what you’d
    learned—”
    “I remember,” he said, smiling, “that you followed me around and wheedled
    and wept till I was forced to show you.”
    “Wheedled, yes,” she said. “Wept, never. And you started it; I didn’t ask to get
    put in a baby-sack while you leaped your horse over hurdles.”
    “My own fault, I admit it.” He also remembered, though he said nothing of it,
    how their friendship had begun. He had felt sorry for his young cousin, and had
    sought her first out of dislike for those who wished to ostracize her, especially

    Galanna, but soon for her own sake: for she was wry and funny even when she
    could barely speak, and loved best to find things to be enthusiastic about; and did
    not remind him that he was to grow up to be king. He had never quite learned to
    believe that she was always shy in company, nor that the shyness was her best
    attempt at a tactful acknowledgement of her precarious place in her father’s
    court; nor that her defensive obstinacy was quite necessary.
    It was to watch her take fire with enthusiasm that he had made a small wooden
    sword for her, and shown her how to hold it; and later he taught her to ride a
    horse, and let her ride his own tall mare when the first of