Read Online The Shadow Within by Karen Hancock - Free Book Online Page B

his back, and he carried a beribboned walking stick. The very sight of him raised Abramm’s hackles, for he represented all that the Esurhites had mocked in Kiriathan character, an embarrassment Abramm had spent two years fighting to overcome.
    The second man, clad in black and brown, wore his own lank brown hair long around a sallow, pockmarked face. Spectacles obscured his eyes, but he looked vaguely familiar.
    The third member of the trio was as different from the first two as they were from each other. His gray doublet stretched tightly over a bony frame, its only adornment a tongue of red flame embroidered onto the left breast. Also eschewing the false curls of current fashion, he wore his graying hair queued back from his face like Haldon. His eyes were too small, his nose too round, and his mouth too wide, and he held himself as stiffly upright as if a poker had been rammed up his spine.
    All three looked surprised at Abramm’s appearance, their eyes flicking up and down his torn and stained clothing, catching on the sword, the bloody hands, the beard. He actually saw the smell hit them, all three recoiling in unison.
    The foppish one choked out a faint, “Oh my,” and yanked a lace-edged kerchief from his sleeve. Covering his fleshy nose and mouth, he coughed delicately into the cloth, then forced himself to pull it away. “They said that beast had an odor,” he said in a strangled voice. “I fear they did not exaggerate.”
    “I am on my way to address the problem now,” Abramm assured him, trying to ignore the pounding in his head.
    “Far be it from me to detain you, then.” The man backed a step and coughed into his kerchief again. “I only wished to welcome you, sir, and to offer my thanks for ridding us of the monster. Also, I have considerable exper- tise in matters of wardrobe and cultural affairs, should you have need of counsel.”
    “And you are?”
    The dandy froze in the act of bowing, then straightened. His blue eyes watered. “Temas Darnley, Your Highness. Earl of Bathport.” He patted his lips with his kerchief, then straightened his spine. “I shall detain you no longer, sir, and look forward to making your acquaintance at the Table this evening.”
    And with that he fled, leaving Abramm to address his sudden puzzlement to his two remaining visitors. “The Table is meeting tonight ?”
    “They’ve called a special session in your honor,” said the bespectacled one. He bowed a formal greeting. “Byron Blackwell, Highness. Speaker of the Table of Lords.”
    Tonight? Plagues! Will I even have enough time to complete a purge? It didn’t matter. As another spasm of nausea wrenched through him, he realized he was fast reaching the point where it would either be a purge or days of fevered delirium.
    Blackwell was eyeing him sharply. “Perhaps you remember me from years ago?”
    “Count Blackwell’s son. Yes. I remember.” Blackwell’s father, Henry, had been a favorite of Abramm’s own sire, and Blackwell himself a friend of Abramm’s eldest brother. Abramm had been too young at the time to remember much about him save that he’d been a quiet youth with a penchant for reading.
    Abramm glanced at the third man, the one in the gray doublet with the tongue of flame who was now bowing stiffly.
    “Darak Prittleman, Highness. Lord of Lathby, First Secretary of the Nunn, Headman in the Laity Order of Gadriel, and humble servant of Tersius in the Flames.” His voice was dry, nasal, and overly precise. “I, too, wish to offer my welcome and thanks, and to express my joy that at last we shall have a king of Eidon’s choosing to deliver this realm from the evil overtaking it.”
    Abramm stared at him, rankled by this recitation—he’d heard rumors of this new order of Gadriel back in Qarkeshan—and bereft of an appropriate response.
    Once again the kraggin’s ammoniac musk delivered him. Prittleman had been quietly turning green, and now he straightened abruptly. “I, too, offer my