Read Online The King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson - Free Book Online

is Jon Marker.” Seeing Rose’s bafflement, he adds, “You know of him. You know what he has lost. But perhaps you do not know that he is utterly alone.
    â€œIt would be a great kindness to befriend him.”
    If Arbor feels an impulse to touch Jon Marker’s pain, she will do herself no harm.
    Rose is confounded. Her stare becomes a frown. It becomes dismay. “You wish me to befriend a man I do not know? A man I have never met?”
    Black still holds up his hand, though it no longer commands. “Father Tenderson will introduce you,” he says because he wants to hurry away. “Or Father Whorry.”
    Then he touches his hat and withdraws into the crowd.
    Rose follows the stranger with her eyes until she loses sight of him. She hardly feels Arbor tug at her hand. She hardly hears her daughter ask, “Can we, Ma? Can we meet him? The man who needs us?” The stranger has turned the mother’s world on its head, and she is no longer sure of her balance. She is nodding, but she does not know what she will do.
    She does not know that Black has already put her from his mind. His thoughts run ahead of him rather than behind, traveling a road to a destination he cannot see, as he sifts through the throng until he clears the square. When he is able to gaze down the street, he scans it for the sign of the inn he seeks.
    Soon he locates it. It is where the Dark priest told him it would be. At once, he ascends to the series of porches on that side and strides toward his goal. In his haste, he neglects to touch his hat to the townsfolk. They stare at him harder as he passes.
    As he expects in a town of this size, the inn is also a tavern. Its swinging doors admit him to a room both larger and more elaborate than Bailey’s establishment. It has chandeliers for light and padded chairs at round tables for its patrons. Long mirrors behind the bar reflect the bustle of serving-maids and boys carrying a greater variety of viands than Bailey can offer. And inits own fashion, the place is as crowded as the square. Father Whorry has advised Black well. A profusion of wines, ales, and spirits flows as wagoneers, caravaners, and their guards demand refreshment after their long deprivation. Half or more of the men and women who have come with the caravan will resume their journey on the morrow with aching heads and complaining stomachs.
    Amid the confusion, however, the shouts for service or companionship, the noise of camaraderie, and the clatter of eating, Black identifies the caravan-master without difficulty. She has the arms of a muleteer, the hands of a gravedigger, the hair of a wind-storm, and the bulk of a steer, but it is not by those signs that he knows her. He is sure of her because she sits at the only table that does not strain to accommodate too many patrons. Also her back is to the wall and her face to the door, she drinks sparingly, and the two men she permits to share her table defer to her as they eat.
    As Black enters, the caravaners pay no heed, but every gaze that resides in Settle’s Crossways snaps to him as though he has come flinging daggers.
    Like the inn itself, and its patrons, this does not surprise Black. He expects it, not because he is a stranger, but rather by reason of his actions against Ing Hardiston and the storekeeper’s comrades. He judges that Hardiston would not talk about his own defeat willingly, or permit his deeds to reflect discreditably on him. But the storekeeper needed a healer, as did one of hismen. An explanation would be required. Therefore he will have told his version of events—a courageous, honorable version—to everyone he encounters. By now, half the town has heard Ing Hardiston’s tale.
    This does not trouble Black. He has no use for the town’s good will. And he sees no indication that Hardiston’s tale has reached the caravan-master. She notices his arrival as she notices everything, but she betrays no reaction that