Isle of Glass Read Online Free

very calm.
“Rhydderch. I know what you plan. You will break me beyond all mending and cast
me at my King’s feet, a gauntlet for your war. And while you challenge Rhiyana,
you prick Gwynedd to fury with your incessant driving of the hill-folk to raid
beyond the border. Soon Anglia’s great Lion must come, lured into the war you
have made; you will set the kings upon one another and let them destroy
themselves, while you take the spoils.”
    While he spoke, he watched the man’s face. First Rhydderch
reddened, then he paled, and his eyes went deadly cold. Alun smiled. “So you
plan, Rhydderch. You think, with your men-at-arms and your hill-folk and all
your secret allies, that you are strong enough to take a throne and wise enough
to keep it. Have you failed to consider the forces with which you play? Kilhwch
is young, granted, and more than a bit of a hellion, but he is the son of Bran
Dhu, and blood kin to Gwydion of Rhiyana. He may prove a stronger man than you
reckon on. And Gwydion will support him.”
    “Gwydion!” Rhydderch spat. “The coward king, the royal fool.
He wobbles on his throne, powdered and painted like an old whore, and brags of
his miraculous youth. His so-called knights win their spurs on the dancing
floor and their titles in bed. And not with women, either.”
    Alun’s smile did not waver. “If that is so, then why do you
waste time in provoking him to war?”
    A vein was pulsing in Rhydderch’s temple, but he grinned
ferally. “Why not? It’s the safest of all my bets.”
    “Is it? Then Richard must be the most perilous of all, for
he is a lion in battle—quite unlike my poor Gwydion. How will he look on this
plot of yours, Rhydderch? Rebellion in the north and a brother who would poison
him at a word and the dregs of his Crusade, all these he has to face. And now
you bring him this folly.”
    “Richard can never resist a good fight. He won’t touch me.
More likely he’ll reward me.”
    “Ah. A child, a warmonger, and a dotard. Three witless
kings, and three kingdoms ripe for the plucking by a man with strength and
skill.” Alun shook his head. “Rhydderch, has it ever occurred to you that you
are a fool?"
    A mailed fist lashed out. Alun’s head rocked with the force
of the blow. “You vain young cockerel,” Rhydderch snarled. “Strung up in my own
castle, and you crow like a dunghill king. I’ll teach you to sing a new song.”
    The fist struck again in the same place. Alun choked back a
cry. Rhydderch laughed and held out his hand. One of his men placed a dark
shape in it.
    In spite of himself, Alun shrank. Rhydderch shook out a whip
of thongs knotted with pellets of lead. Alun made one last, desperate effort to
penetrate that opaque mind.
    No use. It was mad. The worst kind of madness, which passes
for sanity, because it knows itself and glories in its own twisted power.
Alun’s gentle strength was futile against it.
    He felt as if he were tangled in the coils of a snake, its
venom coursing through his veins, waking the passion which was as deep as his
serenity. As many-headed pain lashed his body, his wrath stirred and kindled.
He forgot even torment in his desperate struggle for control. He forgot the
world itself. All his consciousness focused upon the single battle, the great
tide of his calmness against the fire of rage.
    The world within became the world without. All his body was
a fiery agony, and his mind was a flame. Rhydderch stood before him, face
glistening with sweat, whip slack in his hand. He sneered at his prisoner.
“Beautiful as a girl, and weak as one besides. You’re Rhiyanan to the core.”
    Alun drew a deep shuddering breath. The rage stood at bay,
but it touched his face, his eyes. “If you release me now, I shall forgive this
infamy, although I shall never forget it.”
    “Let you go?” Rhydderch laughed. “I’ve hardly begun.”
    “Do you count it honorable to flog a man in chains, captured
by treachery?”
    “A man, no. You, I hardly count