Thornspell by Helen Lowe Read Free Book Online Page A

have so many of my family died?”
    The bronze eyes held his, cool and level as a blade. “Like all human aptitudes, the talent for power does not necessarily appear in every generation. You are the first to inherit it with any strength since your great-grandfather’s time, although so far it has only manifested as visions and dreams.” He put the heavy book down and pushed it along the table toward Sigismund. “But even without the power of your inheritance to call on, your kin have not bent to the Margravine’s will. She has been trying to gain the same control over your House as she has over the
zu
Malvolin, but each generation has resisted her wiles.”
    “So she killed them instead?” whispered Sigismund. “Is that what happened?”
    Balisan nodded. “That way there would be fewer to stand against her when the hundred years are up. And it is possible, probable even, that she engineered the marriage between your parents in order to have a greater chance of controlling you.”
    Sigismund drew a deep breath in. “So that’s why my father sent for you when Sir Andreas wrote that the Margravine had been here.”
    The master-at-arms nodded again. “Yes. The old secret of the Wood has been passed down from king to king—and he would very much like you to be your own person, and to live to grow up.”
    An image flashed across Sigismund’s mind, a vision of his father sitting in a drafty campaign tent with the lantern light flickering over piled maps and reports. He recognized Sir Andreas’s seal, stamped in wax on the topmost scroll, and saw the bitter set of the King’s mouth. Then the tent flap stirred, lifting on a gust of wind, and Balisan stepped through.
    Sigismund shook his head and the vision cleared. He frowned at the spine of the book that Balisan had pushed toward him, tilting his head to one side to read the elaborate script:
Coats of Arms and the Codes of War: A Guide.
    “But that’s heraldry,” he said, a little indignantly. “I’ve already begun learning that with Master Griff. I thought you were going to teach me the arts of war, and how to protect myself from the Margravine.”
    Balisan slanted an eyebrow upward, in a way that made Sigismund feel like a small child crying for sweets. “I am,” the master-at-arms told him, “but both these things require training and discipline. You have fallen easily into the way of dreams, but without knowing what you were doing or what dangers lurked there. That must be remedied. But,” he added, nodding at the tome in front of Sigismund, “knowledge too is a form of power, and when you know that book you will know the colors and emblems of every noble house in this kingdom, as well as the alliances they represent. You will be able to tell friend or enemy at a glance, even in the heat of battle, simply by reading their coat of arms. And that,” he said, turning to look out over the Wood in a way that forbade further questions, “is a beginning.”
             
    As the next few days slipped into weeks, Sigismund began to wonder if his expectations of a more interesting life had been misplaced. The only new practice that Balisan introduced was getting Sigismund to meditate at dawn and dusk on the roof of their tower, or in the chamber below if it was raining. The master-at-arms claimed that it was a routine followed by all the hero-knights of the Paladinates: it taught them to become fully aware of both the detail and totality of their surroundings, without being distracted by either.
    “A paladin must become indivisible from all things,” Balisan told Sigismund in the first dark predawn, “just as he is one with the blade he wields.”
    Secretly, Sigismund thought the meditation was more about endurance than awareness. He would sit cross-legged and straight-backed in the center of the tower roof and try to rise above the jangle of his thoughts and the heat or cold of the air. But there were times when he wanted to yell at Balisan and tell