The Mark of Ran by Paul Kearney Read Free Book Online Page A

doesn’t think so.”
    “He may think what he likes.”
    “Are you his daughter, or his wife?”
    The unsettling eyes stabbed out at him, as cold and hostile as those of a spitting cat.
    “No wife. No kin. I work for him.”
    “What do you do?”
    She actually smiled, but there was no humor in it, a bitterness rather. “Whatever I have to.”
    “Psellos, then.” The exasperation was fraying Rol’s voice. “What kind of man is he? A man down on the wharves warned me against him. How did he know my grandfather, my mother?” The last words were a sobbing croak.
    Rowen regarded him with mild interest. “I dare say you’ll find out, in time.”
    After that Rol gave up on her. He rose from the rags of his meal and set about exploring the chamber. He was not altogether surprised when he found that every door leading out of it was locked. His dirk was gone, and there was nothing he could see in the place that might serve as a weapon. He did not relish the thought of tackling the girl bare-handed. Rubbing his chest, he leafed through the tattered books on the shelves. He could read, after a fashion, but the words within them were in languages he did not know, illustrated with arcane engravings. There was an unclean feel to some of the tomes, which made him wipe his fingers on his breeches after he had laid them back down.
    Hours passed. Rowen sat watching him, patient and untiring as a stone. Rol wondered what time it was—surely the winter dawn could not be far off? He was exhausted. Finally he gave his companion a last glare, and fell asleep leaning against the wall. He disliked the idea of the bed with its ropes.
     
    He was on the bed when he awoke, nonetheless. Sunlight streamed into the room through windows that had been hidden behind drapes the night before. The charcoal in the brazier had sunk into ash. Psellos and Rowen were standing by it with their backs to him.
    “He’s full-blooded,” Psellos was saying. “I don’t know how it can be, but old Grayven is never wrong. I knew Amerie must have cuckolded the fool, for all her protestations of love.”
    “Who was the father, then?” Rowen asked.
    “You have me there. But I mean to find out, one way or another. In the meantime, he’ll stay.”
    “Another stray to bleed dry?”
    “No—he’s much more than that.” Here Psellos ran a hand up into the black mane of Rowen’s hair. Grasping a fistful, he drew her head back sharply and set his mouth on hers. When he released her, there were red teethmarks about her dark lips. He held out his other hand, and without a word she placed something in it. A clink of coin. Psellos smiled into her pale face, rattled the gift in his palm. “A good night. You got the book?”
    “Yes. Now I must change. I stink.”
    “I like it when you stink,” he said, grinning. She tugged free, leaving black hairs in his fingers. Psellos’s face twisted with mock contrition. “Everything must have a price, Rowen. It is the way of the world.”
    “I know. You taught me well.” She left the room without a backward glance.
    Psellos stood shaking his head. Smiling still. Then he pocketed his coinage and, turning, kicked the bed. “Up.”
    Rol sat up in the bed.
    “Come. If you are to stay here, then we must make you useful.”
     
    The Tower was even more spacious than it looked from without. Rol followed his host up a series of corkscrew stairs until they came out on a wide-open space, the balcony he had glimpsed the night before. Morning had come. They were several hundred feet above the level of the sea here, and in the bright winter sunlight all of Ascari could be seen spread below, and beyond it the blue vastness of the Wrywind extending to the horizon. They were looking east, toward Dennifrey, and a life that already seemed part of the vanished past.
    “Rol, is it?” Psellos asked casually. “Well, that will do. I am your master now, Rol. You may stay here under my tutelage as Rowen has, but in return I expect perfect