Shards of a Broken Crown. Raymond E. Feist

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       • Chapter Five • Confrontations

      ARUTHA FROWNED.

      Pug stood at the door studying the Duke of Krondor a moment, before he said softly, “May I speak with you a moment?”

      Arutha glanced upward and waved him in. “Grandfather. Please.”

      “You appear distracted,” said Pug, sitting in a chair across a large oak table Arutha used for work.

      “I was.”

      “Jimmy and Dash?”

      Arutha nodded as he looked out a window at the warm spring afternoon. His eyes narrowed. They were deep sunk and had dark bags underneath, revealing the lack of sleep that had plagued him since sending his sons into harm’s way. There was grey in Arutha’s hair; Pug hadn’t seen so much just a month before.

      Arutha looked at Pug and said, “You needed to see me?”

      “We have a problem.”

      Arutha nodded. “We have many. Which particular one are we discussing?”

      “Patrick.”

      Arutha stood and moved around the table to the door and glanced through. A pair of clerks outside were hunched over documents, reviewing reports and requests for supplies, lost in their work.

      Arutha closed the door. He returned to his seat and said, “What do you propose?”

      “I propose you send a message to the King.”

      “And?” Arutha looked directly into the magician’s eyes.

      “I think we need another commander in the West.”

      Arutha sighed, and in that moment Pug could hear the fatigue, stress, worry, and doubt in the man, expressed in as eloquent a fashion as if an orator had spoken for an hour. Pug instantly knew the outcome of this discussion before Arutha said another word. Yet he allowed the Duke to continue. “History teaches us that we often do not get the best men for a particular job. It also teaches us that if the rest of us do ours, we’ll somehow manage.”

      Pug leaned forward and said, “We are this close” – he held forefinger and thumb apart a scant portion of an inch – “to war with Great Kesh. Don’t you think it proper to finish the one we have before we start another?”

      “What I think is immaterial,” said Arutha. “I counsel the Prince, but it’s his realm. I’m only allowed to manage it for him.”

      Pug remained silent and stared at Arutha a long moment.

      Suddenly Arutha allowed his temper to get the better of him, slamming his hand down on the table. “I am not my father, damn it!”

      Pug remained silent for another moment, then said, “I never said you were …or that you should be.”

      “No, but you were thinking, ‘How would James have dealt with this?’ “

      Pug said, “It was your mother that read minds, Arutha, not I.”

      Arutha leaned forward. “You’re my grandfather, yet I hardly know you.” He glanced upward toward the ceiling, as if collecting his thoughts, then said, “And that means you hardly know me.”

      “You were raised on the other side of the Kingdom, Arutha. We saw each other from time to time …”

      Arutha said, “It’s difficult growing up surrounded on all sides by legends. Did you know that?”

      Pug shrugged. “I am not sure.”

      Arutha said, “My father was ‘Jimmy the Hand,’ the thief who became the most powerful noble in the Kingdom. I was named for the man who is almost unarguably the most brilliant ruler the Western Realm has known.

      “The King and I have discussed what it’s like to be the sons of such men, on several occasions.” He pointed his finger at the magician and said, “And you … you look like my son. You look younger now than you did when I was a child. You’re turning into a figure of mystery and fear, Grandfather. ‘Pug, the Eternal Sorcerer!’ The man who saved us during the Riftwar.”

      Arutha stopped, weighed his words, and said, “Borric, before he became King, once told me that our roles would be far different than our fathers'. Arutha had been thrust into command in Crydee, a situation demanding action without hesitation, without doubt.

      “Father was the brash boy who saved Arutha, then became his most trusted adviser and friend. Between the two of them there was always an answer.”

      Pug laughed, and it wasn’t a mocking laugh. “I’m sure they would argue they had their share of doubts and mistakes, Arutha.”

      “Perhaps, but the results were there. As a child I grew up hearing the stories in Rillanon, tales told to entertain the eastern nobles who had never seen Krondor, let alone the Far Coast. How Prince Arutha had saved Crydee from the Tsurani host, and had journeyed to Krondor where he found Princess Anita. How father had helped smuggle them both from the city, then later helped get Earl Kasumi to see the King.”

      Arutha became more reflective. “I heard the story of the renegade moredhel, and the rogue magician from Kelewan, and I was told of the attack on the Tear of the Gods. I heard of the Crawler and his attempt to take over the Mockers, and the other stories of Father’s more reckless youth.” He looked at Pug. “I wasn’t a noble reading dry reports, but a boy hearing tales from his father.”

      Pug said, “What are you telling me? That you don’t feel equal to the task?”

      “No man can be equal to the task of putting the Kingdom right, Grandfather.” He narrowed his gaze. “Not even you.”

      Pug took a deep breath, then relaxed. “So Patrick won’t give up Stardock?”

      “He wants it all back, Grandfather. He wants this city rebuilt in his lifetime to a glory beyond what it was before. He wants Kesh completely out of the vale. He wants the Bitter Sea cleared of Quegan raiders and Keshian pirates, and when Borric finally dies, Patrick wants to go to Rillanon to take the Crown, to be known as the greatest Prince in the history of the West.”

      Softly Pug said, “Save us from monarchs with vanity.”

      “Not vanity, Pug. Fear.”

      Pug nodded. “Young men often fear failure.”

      “I understand his fear,” said Arutha. “Maybe if I had been given a different name, George or Harry, Jack or Robert, but no; I was named for the man Father admired above all others.”

      “Prince Arutha was a very admirable man. Of all the men I’ve known, he was among СКАЧАТЬ