Beyond the Burning Lands Read Online Free Page A

white, landmarks I knew: Wherry’s mill, a clump of fir trees that leaned in toward each other like conspirators, a rusty crumbling shaft that came from the ancient times and was shunned by children, being thought to harbor ghosts. And beyond these, so familiar and so dear, the walls of my native city. I was home again. Turning my head so that Ezzard would not see, I put up my sleeve and brushed the dampness from my eyes.
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    If I had any doubts of my welcome they were dispelled by the shout of joy from the guard on the North Gate. Its Sergeant, who had been in my father’s troop when he was still a Captain and whom I could remember, when I was five or six, fencing with me with wooden sticks for swords, gave me the ceremonial salute, and his men yelled their heads off in acclamation. The ordinary people took up the cry and followed us through the streets as we rode to the palace. And the news must have gone ahead because when we reached the palace yard many of the Captains were assembled. I saw Greene and Meredith and Nicoll, small watchful Harding who had hoped to he Prince after my father’s death, and blustering Blaine who had cuffed me into a corner when I urged them to ride against our own walls to avenge him. I saw Edmund’s brother, Charles, whose father had been Prince until my father, with Ezzard’s help, unseated him. And last I saw my brother, who held that title which the Spirits, through Ezzard’s trickery, had promised to me: Prince of Winchester.
    I dismounted and let a soldier take my horse. I walked toward Peter, my feet sinking into snow which the polymufs had not yet had time to clear away. I bowed my head and said:
    â€œGreetings, sire.”
    He put a hand on my shoulder. He said, smiling:
    â€œNo ceremony between brothers! Come in, Luke, and we will drink your health.”
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    The day of my return had been proclaimed a feast, and in the evening there was to be a banquet in celebration. Meanwhile there was the confusion of people greeting me. Some were sincere; others, I very well knew, were not. Blaine, who fulsomely gave thanks to the Spirits for protecting me, would have liked to slip a dagger between my ribs. Harding, a more wily man, would have preferred to watch him, or any other, do it. But there were those like Sergeant Burke, who looked after me on my first campaign, and Wilson, my father’s most trusted comrade, whose gladness was real and unmistakable. There was also Ann, the Prince’s Lady.
    I had seen little of her in the old days. The estrangement between Peter and me had kept me from visiting the house in the River Road where they lived; and of course she was a Christian and so of no importance in the city.
    I had known her as a quiet, perhaps simple woman, without beauty or indeed much else to explain my brother’s choosing her. When I paid my respects I found she had only one woman in attendance—my mother had never had less than half a dozen. This one she dismissed, if dismissal is the right term to use of what was no more than a request, modestly put, that we might be left alone together. She said:
    â€œLet me look at you. Have they been taking proper care of you, your High Seers? You are paler than you were. And taller. And they have shaved your head, but that will soon grow. We shall see that mop of fierce black hair again before spring.”
    I was surprised that she paid me such attention, or remembered me so well. And her smile surprised me with its warmth, and the way it changed a face which I had thought plain and insignificant. I made some sort of reply and she said:
    â€œI cannot express how glad I am to see you, Luke. Not only for your sake but for Peter’s. He could not be happy, knowing you were in exile and from fear of him. He would never have harmed you, and this reconciliation gladdens his heart. He has been so much happier since he asked the Seers to