Read Online Night Blooming by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Free Book Online Page B

over the babble from the street and the market beyond, his young face marked by dust and ambition. “We have served you well, haven’t we?”
    Rakoczy, who had been expecting this, opened his wallet and pulled out twelve silver coins. “Let this hold you for a while, so that you may find suitable advancement in your next employment, and not be compelled to accept the employ of anyone with a few coins to give you. Find a lord worthy of your service.” It was more than generous, and all the soldiers knew it. Before Adalgis could snatch the money, Rotgaud motioned to them to receive the silver humbly; he took the first place in line for the largesse. “You have all done all you were asked to do, and more,” Rakoczy went on. “I thank you.”
    “Very well,” said Adalgis, who had never had so much money at one time in his life. “You have used us honorably, and we are obliged to you.”
    “I am not your lord, nor am I apt to be in future,” said Rakoczy as he passed out the coins. “I am a foreigner here at the behest of Karlus the King. You have ensured that I may do as he bade me.” This was the correct response, and all of them knew it.
    The four soldiers reverenced Rakoczy, then pulled their mounts away from the gates of Sant’ Martin’s, urging their horses through the market throng toward the largest of the taverns.
    “They may not have their coins by morning, between drink and dice and women,” said Otfrid. “But you did well by them.”
    Rakoczy shrugged. “They deserved my gratitude, yet I have few means to express it: as a stranger without lands or honors to bestow, I cannot offer much more than coins for their efforts, which I have done.”
    “You gave coins to peasants,” Fratre Angelomus said, as if to cheapen Rakoczy’s gift to the soldiers.
    “They worked when I bade them. What more could I do?” He inclined his head toward his manservant. “I also pay him.”
    Fratre Angelomus shook his head. “Not what a man of rank would do.”
    There was a subtle shift in Rakoczy’s stance, a different light in his dark eyes; his compelling gaze rested on the monk. “Perhaps,” he allowed in a gentle voice that carried more authority than a shout would have; Fratre Angelomus moved back, masking his reaction by dismounting and tugging experimentally on the billets beneath the wide skirt of his saddle.
    “If you tell the warder you have arrived, you will be taken to your assigned quarters,” said Otfrid. “Fratre Angelomus and I will find proper lodging in the city. In the morning we leave for Aachen, to report on our errand.”
    “Then I will thank you now,” said Rakoczy, paying no heed to the monk. “You have done well, and so I will inform Alcuin.”
    “You offer us no money,” said Fratre Angelomus, his features expressing his scorn more than his tone. “Yet you paid the soldiers lavishly.”
    “Of course: it would disgrace Karl-lo-Magne to pay you, who are his sworn men, and I have no wish to do that It would be a most unfortunate beginning to my stay here.” Rakoczy turned to regard Fratre Angelomus. “I will give a donation to Sant’ Martin in your name, if that would please you.”
    “You will do as you must,” said Fratre Angelomus, busying himself with the girths of his saddle before remounting.
    “And you, good Fratre, will do as you must, as well,” said Rakoczy, nodding to Rorthger and indicating the gates. “We part here, good missi. My thanks to you for bringing me here; I wish you a swift and safe journey to Aachen.”
    “Amen,” said Fratre Angelomus.
    “Godspeed,” said Otfrid, and set his horse trotting away from the monastery.
    Rakoczy raised his hand in farewell, then said to Rorthger, “Well, shall we go in?”
    Rorthger tugged on the mules’ leads and fell in behind Rakoczy. “I am ready.”
    “I wonder if I am,” said Rakoczy in Greek. “What if we should follow after Otfrid, leave Sant’ Martin’s, and return to the Wendish marshes?”
    “We