Read Online Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset by Edmund Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

pleasure. I will stroke your hair and hold your body close to mine and rejoice in your touch.’
    ‘Alyx, do not make me cry.’
    ‘The tears will come later, Kieron – when I am taken to Talbot’s bed, and Petrina comes to yours. How shall either of us bear it then?’
    He held her tight. ‘I do not know. I know only that we have a little time. For that I am grateful.’
    ‘A little time,’ sighed Alyx. ‘Only a little time. So sad … I want to learn about you. I want to learn as much as I can. Do you truly want to be a painter like Master Hobart? Or is there something else.’
    ‘Most of all,’ said Kieron, caressing her, ‘I want to fly. I want to conquer the air as the First Men and the Second Men did. I want to feel close to the stars.’
    ‘Kieron-head-in-the-air,’ she murmured, ‘I love you. You are nothing but a fantasist, a cloud walker.’

10
    Brother Sebastian gazed at Kieron, lying on his daybed, without any animosity or any attempt to inspire fear. Brother Sebastian, a pleasant-looking man of thirty years or so, concealed his ambition, his desire for power, beneath a benign exterior. He rarely bullied. He preferred to look sorrowful. People did not like to see Brother Sebastian unhappy.
    Kieron’s broken leg twitched abominably. It had been set by Seigneur Fitzalan’s own surgeon. Nevertheless, Kieron remained convinced that the fellow knew little of his art. Already, when he stretched and measured his limbs, Kieron seemed to detect that the good leg was significantly longer. He would hate to exchange his present title for Kieron-game-leg. Besides, who would condescend to wrestle with a cripple?
    Brother Sebastian was in a quandary. At the insistence of Mistress Alyx, Kieron had been removed temporarily from Hobart’s house and given a room at the castle. Alyx had roundly condemned Kieron to her father, for indulging in childish pranks, and had implied that Kieron had broken his leg almost deliberately in order to avoid making the sketches and rough compositions that were necessary for the commissioned painting. Why, therefore, let the prentice have an easy time of it? Better, surely, to bring him to the castle so that he could continue his work without delay. That would teach him that he could not evade important affairs merely by breaking a leg.
    Seigneur Fitzalan gave his daughter a curious look. He was an intelligent man. Intelligent enough to realise there were certain things it were better not to know. Besides, the boy was useful. Alyx had been relatively docile since she had had the prentice on whom to vent her feelings. So Kieron had been given a room in the castle while his leg mended.
    Thus Brother Sebastian’s quandary. Kieron, though a commoner, was now a person of some importance – temporarily, at least.
    ‘Tell me, brother, how came you to break the limb?’ This was a rhetorical question, because everyone in the seigneurie knew how Kieron had broken his leg.
    ‘Brother Sebastian, I was but flying a kite,’ said Kieron carefully.
    ‘A kite? You were flying a kite. I have been misinformed, it seems. I had heard that you were flying
in
a kite.’
    Kieron thought for a moment or two. Brother Sebastian had flung back hiscowl. His head was clean-shaven; his face, totally visible, seemed totally innocent.
    ‘It is true, brother,’ amended Kieron. ‘I was flying in a kite.’
    ‘It must have been an exceptionally large kite.’
    ‘It was, Brother Sebastian. It was a very large kite. I designed it.’
    ‘And who aided you in this project, Kieron?’
    Kieron thought carefully. If he admitted that Aylwin had obtained the sail canvas, that they had both cut the willow rods and that Sholto, the smith, had been persuaded to make fastenings for the harness, it could seem like conspiracy.
    ‘No one, Brother Sebastian. It is true I coaxed the miller’s prentice to hold the rope. He is but a stupid fellow and fit for nothing but the grinding of corn. However, dull though he is, it