The Merchant's Partner Read Online Free

and all too often dangerous. It was hazardous enough just being responsible for a ship in these difficult times without courting additional troubles. He strode forward and began issuing instructions for unloading the ship.
    As he left, John, Bourc de Beaumont, turned back to the view. He had other thoughts to absorb him. Not many memories, for they were too far in the past and his life had been full since the parting so many years before, with the continual training and service to the count, the Captal de Beaumont. All his life had been spent in serving him, his lord—and father. He did not regret it, it had been a good education for a man who would become a soldier, a man who would need to spend his time in training with weapons to be able to protect his master.
    In that time he had hardly paused to regret his loss. Indeed, it was hard to think of it in those terms. All he now had were vague recollections, pictures seen as if through a milky haze, where faces and features were indistinct.
    Was it wrong of him to come and see her, though. The Captal de Beaumont had felt so—had said so—not with anger, but with a slight sadness as he tried to explain that it could do her no good; it would not ease her last years. But the Bourc was sure it could not be wrong to see her just once, to see what she actually looked like. He was not going to punish her for what she had done: she had done the best she could, and without thinking of herself or her own safety. He was grateful for the opportunity she had given him, and had tried to take advantage of it.
    At first it had been easy, of course. When he had been young it had all come so naturally, as if he had in truth been born to the Captal de Beaumont’s wife and not to his mother, as if he had not been the Bourc, the bastard. He had known no better. But then, while he was still a squire training to be knight, the snide comments had started. It was not malicious, they were merely the cruel, pointed comments of young boys to a peer who was different. It meant little to them that he was the Captal’s son. To them he had no mother and that was enough. He was marked with the worst scar possible for a child: that of not being the same as others.
    But John, Bourc de Beaumont, had proud blood in his veins—from both the Captal and from Anne of Tyre—and he endured the comments, only occasionally defending his virtue and honor. As he grew into a tall man, fit and lean, the need to protect his name reduced in proportion to his size and the extent of his warrior training, until at last he had his spurs and became a knight.
    He always knew that some day he would have to go and seek her. In the event he had remained muchlonger than he had originally planned. For a man trained in war who delighted in battle, there were few places better than the marches between French and English lands. Here there was honorable service, opportunities to prove himself a worthy man, and to earn money from ransoms and protection money. But after so many years of fighting, he wanted some peace for a few months, and a chance to find out the truth while he still could.
    Slamming an open hand on to the rail in a gesture of decision, he made his way to his packs, lying on the deck by the main mast. A sudden thought made him pause. She would be old now: according to the Captal de Beaumont she should be about fifty, maybe a little more, so well into old age. She might even have died. Throwing a quick glance at the coast again, he was troubled by the thought.
    With an effort he calmed himself and continued to his bags. If she had died, there was nothing he could do about it, it was God’s will. And his own fault for delaying the trip for so long. Collecting his things together, he walked to the plank that would deposit him once more on solid, safe, dry land, and he felt a small smile of relief twitch at his mouth. It would be good to be able to move without the constant pitching and rolling of