Throne of Dragons. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ no part in the fight,” Rodry said, standing tall, taking all of this onto himself. If he weren’t so angry at the stupidity of it all, Godwin might almost be proud.

      “Well, they’ll be stuck taking part in one soon enough,” he said. “Do you think a man like King Ravin won’t strike back? I sent his ambassador on his way because he couldn’t do anything to us. Now you’ve given him a reason to try harder.”

      “And we’ll be there ready to stop him when he does,” Rodry said. Of course he was unrepentant. He might be a man grown, and a knight, but he had never known true war. Oh, he’d fought with bandits and creatures, as any Knight of the Spur would, but he hadn’t faced a full army on the battlefield the way Godwin had in his youth, hadn’t seen the chaos, and the death, and the…

      “Enough,” Godwin said. “You were a fool to do this, Rodry. You must learn better if you’re ever to be worthy to be king.”

      “I—” Rodry began, clearly ready to argue.

      “Be quiet,” Godwin said. “You want to argue because your temper won’t let you do anything else. Well, I’m still king, and I don’t want to hear it.”

      For a moment, he thought that his son might argue anyway, and then Godwin would have to find a punishment that would actually stick when it came to the heir to his throne. Thankfully, Rodry held his tongue.

      “If you ever do something as stupid as this again, I’ll have your status as a knight taken from you as a disgrace,” Godwin said. It was the worst thing he could think of when it came to Rodry, and the message of it certainly seemed to hit home. “For now, step back out of my sight, before I lose my temper the way you always seem to.”

      He could see Rodry reddening, and he thought that his son might stay and argue, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he turned on his heel and stalked from the hall. Maybe he was capable of learning something after all. He sat back on a throne made of hard, dark, unyielding wood, waiting to see who would come forward next, if anyone would dare, given that he still had anger lingering after rebuking his son.

      Finnal, his soon to be son-in-law, filled the void, stepping forward smoothly and giving a bow that was even smoother.

      “Your majesty,” he said. “Forgive me, but given how disrupted things have been with the wedding preparations, my family feels that I should make one or two… requests.”

      His family, which meant Duke Viris, who still stood there smiling in the background, calm as a heron standing above a river waiting to see what he could grab. He was a man who never seemed to be directly responsible for anything, but always seemed to just be there, slightly out of reach of any blame.

      “What requests?” Godwin asked.

      Finnal stepped forward to hand him a rolled length of parchment. Even that was well done, because it meant that he would never have to read out the demands within the parchment himself.

      They were demands; very subtle ones, but demands nonetheless. Where before, the lands offered as a dowry had run to just short of several villages, now, the revised suggestion was that it should include them. There was more money, of course, because inevitably there would be more money, but the real gains of it were hidden away, spread across an extra fishing vessel here, a tithe from a mill there. None of it looked very much, and if Godwin were openly outraged by it, he would probably look like a miser, but when you added it together, it was a definite increase.

      “This is not what our families have already agreed,” he pointed out.

      Finnal offered another of those elegant bows. “My father is a big believer that an agreement can always be… renegotiated. Besides, that was before other circumstances came to light, my king.”

      “What other circumstances?” Godwin demanded.

      “The risk of scale sickness within a family always makes it harder to marry into,” Finnal said. He sounded apologetic about it, but Godwin didn’t believe that tone for a moment. Was this why his father had stood there and had another noble bring Nerra’s sickness into the light? For a renegotiation?

      Godwin rose from his throne, his anger propelling him. He wasn’t sure what he would have said then, what he would have done, but he didn’t get any chance to do it, because in that moment the doors to the great hall burst open, letting in a guard who seemed to be all but holding up a serving girl. Godwin normally didn’t pay that much attention to the individual servants, but he felt sure that this was one of the ones who had gone off with Lenore, just days before.

      The sight of her there was enough to make Godwin stop short, a hand of cold fear wrapping around his heart where before there had been only the heat of anger.

      “Your majesty,” the guard called out. “Your majesty, there has been an attack!”

      It took a second before Godwin could even speak, his fear was so great.

      “What kind of attack? What happened?” he demanded. He looked over to the young woman there, who looked as though she was barely standing.

      “We… we were…” She shook her head as though she could barely even bring herself to say it. “There was an inn… there were people there. King Ravin’s people…”

      Now the fear inside Godwin gave way to horror.

      “Lenore, where is she? Where is she?” he demanded.

      “They took her,” the servant said. “They killed the guards, and they took us, and they…” The pause told Godwin everything he needed to know. “They let some of us go, they wanted us to tell you.”

      “And Lenore?” Godwin asked. “What about my daughter?”

      “They still have her,” the young woman said. “They said they were going to take her south, over the bridge. They’re going to give her to King Ravin.”

      In that moment, nothing else mattered; not his son’s overreactions, not his son-to-be’s demands. All that mattered was the thought that another of his daughters was in danger, and this time, he wasn’t going to fail her, not like he had with Nerra.

      “Summon my knights!” he called out. “Send messages to the Knights of the Spur. Summon my guards. I want every man we have gathered together! Why are you standing there? Move!”

      Around him, guards and servants broke into motion, some running to send messages, some hurrying to go get weapons. For his part, Godwin stalked from the hall, heading through the castle, not caring how many followed him. He all but ran down a spiral stair, feet rattling off the well-worn stone. He passed along tapestry-lined corridors, along paths that had been worn deep into the tiled floors by generations of feet. He headed down to the armory, where a huge door of solid brass stood between the world and the weapons that the castle held, the finest work that the House of Weapons had. The guards there stepped aside to let him pass.

      His armor sat on its stand, breastplate dulled with age, greaves worked with interlocking swirls. Ordinarily, Godwin would have waited for a page to help him, but now he threw it on, fastening buckles, tying stays. He knew he should be making his way to the queen’s chambers, going to tell her that another of her daughters was in danger. Right then, Godwin could have faced a thousand armies, but he couldn’t face doing that.

      What he was about to face was bad enough. Lenore was in danger, had probably faced horrors that were almost beyond imagining. Even with СКАЧАТЬ