Stormbringers (Order of Darkness) Read Online Free

Freize bent down and lifted the little animal in one hand. He could feel the little ribs through the soft fur. It was so small its body fitted in his broad palm. It started to purr, its whole body resonating with the deep, happy sound. ‘Come on then,’ Freize said. ‘Let’s see what we can find for you.’
     
    In a corner of the harbour, seated on a stone seat and sheltered from the cold morning wind by a roughly built wall, a woman was gutting her fish and throwing the entrails down on the floor where they were snatched at once by bigger cats. ‘Too big for you,’ Freize remarked to the kitten. ‘You’ll have to grow before you can fight for your dinner there.’ To the woman he said, ‘Bless you, Sister, can I have a morsel for this kitten here?’
     
    Without raising her head she cut a little piece off the tail and handed it up to him. ‘You’d better have deep pockets if you’re going to feed stray cats,’ she said disapprovingly.
     
    ‘No, for see, you are kind to me, and I am kind to her,’ Freize pointed out, and sat beside her, put the little cat on his knee, and let her eat the tail of the fish, working from plump flesh to scaly end with remarkable speed.
     
    ‘Are you planning to sit around all day looking at a kitten? Do you have no work to do?’ she asked, as the kitten sat on Freize’s knee and started to wash her paws with her little pink tongue.
     
    ‘There I am! Forgetting myself!’ Freize jumped to his feet, snatching up the kitten. ‘I have work to do and important work it is too! So thank you, and God bless you, Sister, and I must go.’
     
    She looked up, her face criss-crossed with deep wrinkles. ‘And what urgent work do you do, that you have the time and the money to stop and feed stray kittens?’
     
    He laughed. ‘I work for the Church, Sister. I serve a young master who is an inquirer for the Pope himself. A brilliant young man, chosen above all the others from his monastery for his ability to study and understand everything – unknown things. He is an inquirer, and I am his friend and servant. I am in the service of God.’
     
    ‘Not a very jealous God,’ she said, showing her black teeth in a smile. ‘Not a God who demands good timekeeping.’
     
    ‘A God who would not see a sparrow fall,’ Freize said. ‘Praise Him and all the little beings of His creation. Good day.’
     
    He tucked the kitten in his pocket where she curled around and put her paws on the top seam so that her little head was just poking out and she could see her way as they went through the crowd to where the fishermen were spreading out their nets for mending, taking down sails and coiling ropes on the ships.
     
    At last Freize found a master who was prepared to take them across the sea to the town of Split for a reasonable fee. But he would not go until midday. ‘I have been fishing half the night, I want my breakfast and dry clothes and then I’ll take you,’ he said. ‘Sail at noon. You’ll hear the church bells for Sext.’
     
    They shook hands on the agreement and Freize went back to the inn, pausing at the stables to order the grooms to have the horses ready for sailing at midday. It seemed to him that the crowds at the quayside had grown busier, even though the market had finished trading. At the inn, there were many young people at the front door, peering into the hallway, and in the stable yard about a dozen children were sitting on the mounting block and the wall of the well. One or two of them had hauled up the dripping bucket from the well and were drinking from their cupped hands.
     
    ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked a group of about six boys, none of them more than twelve years old. ‘Where are your parents?’
     
    They did not answer him immediately, but solemnly crossed themselves. ‘My Father is in heaven,’ one of them said.
     
    ‘Well, God bless you,’ Freize said, assuming that they were a party of begging orphans, travelling together for safety. He