Read Online Nobody's Son by Sean Stewart - Free Book Online

mince and flounce and slither away, he knew they must think him a village fool, not the Hero he had always longed to be.
    Well, at least the damn food should be good.

Chapter Three
Palace Entertainments
    “I’m a hero, not a whore,” Shielder’s Mark snapped at his unhappy valet, striding from his room without so much as choosing his epaulets or pinning up his hair. “I’ll wear my worth on my heart and hands, not my back!” And damned if I’ll pull a village around my shoulders, or belt a town about my waist , he thought, stalking off to dinner.
    And yet… And yet, when he reached the Dining Hall where supper was to be, and saw the glistening throng within, he found himself lingering at the threshold. He was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured cloak and tights, and a fawn-coloured tunic. All his clothes smelled of hibiscus flowers, and they’d put rosewater in his shaving bowl. Rose ower dung-heap still smells like sweet shite , he thought sourly.
    He’d never given a tinker’s damn about his clothes— until now. But watching the courtiers bow and chat, he realized there was an art to dressing that he didn’t grasp, a way of standing to advantage, of moving well. There were no pockets in his tunic and he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
    Without military medals, he pulled out the talisman Queen Lerelil had given him and let it dangle on his breast. In this room of twittering birds, the ruby-eyed serpent seemed old, cold, and brutal.
    You’re in ower your head, lad. You know less than nowt about this world, and you haven’t made many friends since you got here.
    It went against all his instincts to fight on his enemy’s terms. And so he hesitated under an archway, studying the gentlemen of fashion for some clue as to what to do with his hands, his movements, his words.
    To Mark’s left, Anujel and Count Laszlo met and bowed. The Count had changed into a tunic of red-brown velvet with gleaming gold buttons. Ribbons and medals adorned his chest. His round, high-browed head sat atop a platter of lace. “My dearest Anujel: how fares your honoured father?”
    “Well, well. I only hope to be as fit as he is now, when I at last permitted am to drop the load of Policy, and retire to that good garden that the ancients of my line maintain upon our small estate.”
    “A happy man is he who turns his back upon the fray,” the Count said mechanically, as if he didn’t believe his words and didn’t particularly care whether anyone else did either. He was married to the middle Princess, Mark remembered. The clever one: Willan.
    “Of your honoured father I must ask in turn: how fares he?” Anujel inquired.
    “Splendid, I believe. Angling is his passion of the moment.” Count Laszlo’s fingers toyed with the jewelled hilt of a dagger that hung at his hip. He glanced at Mark, then away. The tiniest hint of a smile crept to his lips. “So: the last and boldest Princess is to wed. The King must be a happy man.”
    Anujel’s eyebrows rose. “I doubt his happiness outstrips your own in any way, or that of Gerald, Duke and consort to his eldest heir,” the councillor remarked.
    Count Laszlo’s cold eyes twinkled. “Of course, the Duke and I must joy to see our sovereign glad.”
    “Of course,” Anujel said drily. He bowed before an imposing dowager. “Duchess.”
    Quickly Count Laszlo bowed. “Here I take my leave of you, dear coz. Your health, and health unto your father.” And then, “Duchess! Your servant. Could you condescend to take a turn about the room with me?”
    The Duchess, a grim, horse-faced woman in her late fifties, nodded imperceptibly and continued her stately cruise with Count Laszlo behind her like a round-bellied merchantman in tow to a battleship.
    Mark stepped back from the threshold as Anujel walked by; they pretended not to notice one another.
    What the hell? The Count’s smug as a pig in mud ower you wedding Gail, but why? And why should Duke Gerald be whistling too, as Anujel