The Conqueror Read Online Free

branded on the left flank, but private animals changed hands
fairly often and it was more a matter of having a good description
and a bill of sale. This one in particular he would be sad to part
with, a nice piebald gelding, black and white with all the vigor of
a young stallion and none of the bad temper.
    Nyron was just going off shift. As was
his habit, after signing the book below the day’s entries he turned
it over to his relief. Serjeant Torak had the night shift. Captain
Nyron headed for the kitchen complex. This lay at the rear of what
had been renovated into a proper palace, built on the foundations
of the original keep or so it was said. It was said the dungeons
were the only remaining vestiges of the old place. With the
renovations had come new buildings at ground level, backing up the
inner curtain wall to some extent with the holding cells. Actual
Court was held in smaller rooms off the Great Hall.
    The smell of bread, and ale, and
cheese, and fish, and more than anything what smelled like chicken
pies was overpowering to a hungry soldier after twelve hours on
duty. Much of that had been spent on his feet. The rest had been
spent on his butt. As to which was worse, that was sometimes
difficult to say.
    The chamberlain, Taez was there,
talking to Margg, and Nyron had a thought. While the reward might
be interesting, it wouldn’t be much in monetary terms. There would
inevitably be too many middle-men, and one was often enough to
seriously complicate matters. His personal status was simply too
low to pull it off. Then there was the question of the price. The
barbarian had a certain rugged sex appeal, to the extent that
Nyron, not the most ambivalent or ambidextrous of men, had even
noted it himself. He grinned slightly at his internal
word-play.
    Queen Eleanora had a certain
reputation, not that he cared one way or the other.
    The question was how to bring the
subject up, in a socially-palatable form. Margg was getting a quiet
and extremely polite dressing-down, but it was a dressing-down
nevertheless. All the signs were there. She looked extremely upset.
Nyron had appeared during a brief lull in the conversation and she
looked at him in something akin to gratitude.
    “ Taez.”
    That shaven head gleamed in the
overhead light falling from a hundred tallow candles. Tattoos
wreathed the shiny hairless forearms, arms like a stevedore Taez
had. Each and every one of them seemed to have a past. The kitchen
was very hot, and a kind of unofficial sanctuary for the more
junior officers. This was true on summer nights and most especially
in winter. Taez turned to regard his colleague. They served
civilian and military functions respectively, their duties didn’t
overlap and Nyron had always deferred to Taez in household matters.
For that and other reasons, they had a pretty good
relationship.
    They might even be friends, insofar as
it was possible to do so, thought Nyron.
    “ Oh, hello, Nyron. How was
the day?”
    “ It was all right. The
usual, as usual. Perhaps even a little boring. This is usually a
pretty good thing, at least to my way of thinking.”
    Taez nodded, half-grinning, and his
eyes naturally gravitated back to the head cook, a stout woman and
a bit of a terror in her own right. She stood wringing her hands
and looking unhappy.
    “ We’ll talk of this
later.”
    “ Yes, Master
Taez.”
    She nodded, bobbed her head, and
bolted.
    “ What’s up with
Margg?”
    Taez shook his head.
    Then he grinned again, as Nyron helped
himself to a poultry-pie and a tall mug of milk.
    “ Nothing, really. She just
takes everything a little too personally.”
    Margg’s greatest fear was that she
would be replaced, thought Nyron. There must have been something
wrong with the fish, or the mutton, or the pudding was a bit cold
last night, and she was desperately trying to lay the blame
squarely where it belonged…somewhere else, no doubt.
    He nodded pleasantly. The pie steamed
and the smell was wondrous. He put it down