The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) by Tim Stead Read Free Book Online Page A

wandered the length of his back wall, which was thick with bows, and pulled down two. He offered the first to Arla.
    She took it. It was unstrung, but it looked like the sort of bow the king might use, or the Mage Lord. If she went wandering round Gulltown with such a thing over her shoulder someone would probably try to steal it, just for the ivory inlay. It felt good, though. She put it to the ground and bent it back with one leg.
    She gave it back to the bowyer. “No.”
    He smiled and put the bow on the counter. “No,” he said. “I thought not.” He offered her the other bow. This one felt the same, but it was black. Arla had never seen a black bow before. She flexed it, tried the grip in her left hand.
    “What’s it made of?” she asked.
    “The best materials. Sweetwood and Caler bone. The colour is dye, taken from the juice of the night berry.”
    She nodded. “A string.” He gave her one, and she fitted it to the bow, twisting it a dozen times as she fitted it. She played the taut string next to her ear, and then pulled it, drawing the string alongside her cheek with two fingers. She released it.
    “A sweet tone,” the bowyer said.
    “Arrows.”
    The bowyer led her through to a back room, and there were thousands of arrows, different shaft lengths, materials, flights, heads. He picked an arrow off a shelf and offered it to her.
    “Not a barb,” she said. “I want a clean head.”
    He chose another. It looked about right, so she laid it alongside the bow and drew it back again, squinted down the shaft. “You have unflighted arrows of the same weight and somewhere to shoot?”
    “Of course.”
    It took another hour to tune to bow. Arla shot over a hundred arrows at the bowyer’s targets, making small adjustments to the string, the arrow rest, the nocking point until she was happy that she could hit anything she wanted. In that hour she grew fond of the bow. It was a little different from her old favourite that had perished in the warehouse fire, but it had advantages. It was a few ounces lighter, and to be honest it was a stronger weapon – more robust.
    There was the colour, too. It was the most sinister looking bow she had ever seen, and she chose arrows with black shafts and red flights. It was like shooting fire out of darkness.
    Eventually she was satisfied. She unstrung the bow.
    “How much?” she asked.
    “It’s paid for,” the bowyer said. “Lawkeepers’ account.”
    “We have an account?”
    “Payment is guaranteed by the council,” he replied.
    “Still,” she said. “I want to know how much.”
    “Seven gold,” he said. It was a lot. Arla was used to Samara’s coin now, though it had taken a while. In the guard you got what you needed from the guard. Here you had to pay for everything. A copper bought a loaf of bread, three bought an ale, twenty coppers made a silver, three silvers would rent you a room for a week, and twenty silvers made a gold. Seven gold was a lot, but she couldn’t say the bow was overpriced. She’d never bought one before.
    “I’ll take it with me,” she said. Arla had expected to have to come back and pay for it later, but this was better. She took a quiver and a wrist guard as well and restrung the bow before she left. It felt good having a bow on her shoulder again. She’d been short of practice recently, so much so that her bow fingers stung a little from an hour of shooting. She needed to find somewhere to practice regularly.
    Back at the law house things seemed chaotic. Ulric was sitting in his usual place by the door and a couple of labourers were tearing down one of the walls so that the front room by the entrance was becoming part of the hall. The air was full of dust and one of the labourers was singing a popular song very badly while he worked. She pulled a face at Ulric.
    “The chief wants to see you,” Ulric said. “He’s in the big room with Gilan.”
    She had to be told where the ‘big room’ was. When she found it she saw