The Patrimony by Robert Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

their lands and treasures had been seized in the name of the Confederation, so there was much wealth at the disposal of the Undying, and this was quite evident at the court in those days.
    “That was when the New Palace was begun, and the Western Palace at Theesispolis, as well. Old roads were improved and new ones laid. There were official feasts four or five times each week and colorful processions, horseraces, warcart races, galley races on the river from the capital to Ehlai and back, parties and music and dancing somewhere every night—and it was at one such that I first met your stepmother, Mahlee. I— What is it, Flopears?”
    The prairiecat who had been scouting ahead of the column mindspoke, “Chief Bili, I think that those you seek are just ahead of yon. One male rides ahead, and then back of him two more males and a female ride. Just behind them more males, fighters by the look of them. Then wagons with both males and females.”
    “Little sister.”
Ahrkeethoheeks
Bili toed his stallion close, opened his arms wide and warmly embraced the Lady Giliahna, Dowager Princess of Kuhmbuhluhn. Releasing her, he reigned about and took the hand of
Thoheeks
Bahrt in a firm grasp, smiling cordially. “Thanks for the rider, Bahrt, it gave me a good excuse for this outing. I trow, desk work gets more wearisome from one day to the next, and this is a fine day to fork a horse. But where’ve you been keeping yourself, cousin? You’ve not set foot in Morguhn since you brought in last year’s taxes.”
    The
thoheeks
rumbled a laugh. “Behind my desk, Bili, where else? Trying to make sure I’ll be able to pay this year’s bite.”
    “Then,” chuckled the
ahrkeethoheeks
, “guest with me at Morguhn Hall, this night, and I’ll feed you back a little of your money’s worth. Besides, that mustachioed and thoroughly distinguished looking gentleman yonder is my eldest son, Djef, just down from Goohm, taking his accrued leavetime after three years of campaigning in the west. Mayhap hell spin us a few tales if,” he chuckled again and raised his voice a few notches, “he can take his eyes off his Aunt Giliahna for longer than two heartbeats at a time.”

Chapter VI
    Giliahna was awakened by one of her servitors as the woman laid and lit a morning fire on the bedchamber hearth. It grew cold at night, even in summer, this close to the mountains, so she snuggled back under the down-filled coverlet and waited for the new-lit blaze to warm the room a bit, thinking that after the enervating, sultry nights which had marked her travel through the lowlands, this brisk and healthful coolness was almost like home.
    “Now, dammit!” she snapped aloud. “This
is
home, for all that that Ehleen and her piglets are rooting and squatting here. I’m rightful chatelaine of Vawn Hall, not Mehleena!”
    Eyes closed, hands pressed together between her cheek and the pillow, the snap and crackle of the resinous kindling her only distraction, she thought on the past. She thought of the last time that Giliahna Sanderz had slept in her father’s hall. She had wept herself to sleep that long-ago night, wept for poor, exiled Tim, wept for her dead mother, wept for her father whose age and infirmity had made him the tool of her scheming and thoroughly hateful stepmother, and wept for herself.
    But she had steeled herself the next morning, denied her enemy, her father’s wife, the satisfaction of seeing a Sanderz woman’s tears. And though she had wept often during the long journey north, it had been in private, and when once her party had crossed the border into the Principate of Kuhmbuhluhn, her pride had refused her the luxury of more tears. Recalling the bardsongs of all her ancestors who had ridden bravely to confront danger and death, that fourteen-year-old Giliahna had squared her jaw and raised her head and, drawing the invisible blade of her inborn courage, toed her mount forward to her encounter with destiny.
    Mehleena and her women had