Ranger's Apprentice 3 & 4 Bindup Read Online Free Page B

he’d refilled the tankard with the cheap, fiery brandy-spirit that was the stock in trade of dockside bars like this. A sale was a sale, he told himself doubtfully, but this customer looked like trouble waiting to happen and the tavern keeper wishedfervently that he’d go and let it happen some place else.
    His usual customers, with their uncanny instinct for trouble brewing, had mostly cleared out when the small man had arrived and begun drinking with such unswerving purpose. Only half a dozen had remained. One of them, a hulking stevedore, had looked over the smaller man and decided he was easy pickings. Small and drunken the customer might be, but the grey-green cloak and the double knife scabbard at his left hip marked him as a Ranger. And Rangers, as any sensible person could tell you, were not people to trifle with.
    The stevedore learned that the hard way. The fight barely lasted a few seconds, leaving him stretched unconscious on the floor. His companions hastily departed for a friendlier, and safer, atmosphere. The Ranger watched them go and signalled for a refill. The innkeeper stepped over the stevedore, nervously topped up the Ranger’s tankard, then retreated behind the relative safety of the bar.
    Then the real trouble started.
    â€˜It has come to my attention,’ the Ranger announced, enunciating his words with the careful precision of a man who knows he has drunk too much, ‘that our good King Duncan, lord of this realm, is nothing but a poltroon.’
    If the atmosphere in the bar before this had been anticipatory, it now became positively sizzling with tension. The eyes of the few remaining customers were locked on the small figure at the table. He gazed around, a grim little smile playing on his lips, just visible between the grizzled beard and the moustache.
    â€˜A poltroon. A coward. And a fool,’ he said clearly.
    Nobody moved. This was dangerous talk. For a normal citizen to abuse or insult the King in public like this would be a serious crime. For a Ranger, a sworn member of the Kingdom’s special forces, it was close to treason. Nervous glances were exchanged. The few remaining customers wished they could leave quietly. But something in the Ranger’s calm gaze told them this was no longer an option. They noticed now that the longbow he had leant against the wall behind him was already strung. And the quiver beside it was full of arrows. They all knew that the first person to try to go through the front door would be followed in rapid time by an arrow. And they all knew that Rangers, even drunk Rangers, rarely missed what they aimed at.
    Yet to remain here while the Ranger berated and insulted the King was equally dangerous. Their silence might well be taken as acquiescence should anyone ever find out what was going on.
    â€˜I have it on good authority,’ the Ranger continued, almost jovially now, ‘that Good King Duncan is not the lawful occupant of the throne. I’ve heard it said that he is, in fact, the son of a drunken privy cleaner. Another rumour has it that he was the result of his father’s fascination with a travelling hatcha-hatcha dancer. Take your pick. Either way, it is hardly the correct lineage for a king, is it?’
    A small sigh of concern passed from someone’s lips. This was becoming more and more dangerous by the moment. The tavern keeper shifted nervously behind the bar, saw a movement in the back room and moved to get a clearer view through the doorway. His wife, on her way into the tap room with a plate of pies for the bar, had stopped as sheheard the Ranger’s last statement. She stood white-faced, her eyes meeting her husband’s in an unspoken question.
    He glanced quickly at the Ranger, but the other man’s attention was now focused on a wagoner who was trying to make himself inconspicuous at the far end of the bar.
    â€˜Don’t you agree, sir … you in the yellow jerkin with most of