The Sable Moon Read Online Free

stood eyeing each other in perplexity. Meg started to shiver as her clothes dried in the winter wind.
    â€œWolves or no wolves,” Trevyn broke silence, “you need a fire.”
    â€œWe should camp here, then,” she agreed heavily. “If they come, we can get into the mud hole—”
    â€œIt’s too small for all of us. Come on.” Trevyn strode back the way he had come without even a glance at his horse. It followed him unled, and the cow, Molly, lowed softly and followed him as well.
    Meg stared in disbelief. “The poor thing must be addled,” she murmured, and trotted after.
    â€œGather wood,” Trevyn called.
    He filled his arms as he walked. After a few hundred feet he found the campsite he had noted earlier, a jumbled pile of rock protruding from a steep forest slope. Such formations were not uncommon in those parts, but this one had a jutting shelf of granite overhead. The dirt beneath was trampled clear of undergrowth, black with ashes. Many travelers had camped here—perhaps even Hal and Alan in years gone by.
    Trevyn made the fire, then collected firewood feverishly until full dark stopped him. The girl tended the animals and the blaze. Arundel stamped restlessly where he stood against a wall of rock. Molly stood beside him, swaying.
    â€œShe’s quite exhausted,” Trevyn remarked.
    â€œHadn’t ye better put the rope on her all the same?” Meg asked. “She’ll run off if—if anything should go wrong.”
    Trevyn shook his head. “She will not run.”
    â€œHumor me,” Meg told him pointedly. It was a phrase she had recently learned.
    So he tethered the cow and came to sit by the fire. He and Meg stared silently over the flames at a wall of darkness beyond. Trevyn felt satisfied with the sizable pile of wood he had brought in, and the rock that half surrounded them retained the fire’s heat almost as well as a house. Still, he had to admit that their situation lacked a certain comfort.
    â€œNothing to eat,” Meg sighed.
    â€œAy.” Trevyn grinned at the hint. “You’re right, Meg, I’ve nothing.”
    â€œDrat.” She shifted her position, trying to ease the contact of her bones with the hard ground. “Well, there’s no use sitting here like dummies all night, waiting for shadows. Let’s have a story.”
    â€œCertainly,” he said agreeably. “Go ahead.”
    â€œNay, nay, I mean a story of Laueroc! Something about courage, something to speed our blood, give us heart—a story of the Sun Kings!”
    â€œOh,” he remarked.
    â€œYou’re from Laueroc,” she prodded impatiently. “Surely you know what I mean.”
    He did indeed. But it was not their courage that he valued most in his uncle and father.
    â€œIt’s not quite what you have in mind,” he said slowly, “but it’s a beautiful tale. Have you ever heard about the Sun Kings and the proud lord of Caerronan?”
    â€œNay!” She clapped delightedly.
    â€œNay?” he exclaimed with mock surprise; he knew that the story was not told outside his family. “Well, it took place only a few months after King Hal and King Alan were crowned.…”
    He felt strange, speaking of them so impersonally. As if his mind had been disjointed, bent to a new angle, he saw them differently, envisioning them as he had never actually known them, when they were nearly as young as he.
    Here is the tale Trevyn told:
    The young Sun Kings missed their wandering life, and they got tired of courtly ceremony. So sometimes, when they could, they would put on old clothes and slip away for a week or two. They would ride at random around Isle, camping in the open or staying at a cottage. Perhaps people humored them and were not really fooled. Hal and Alan could not bring themselves to ride any horses but their own, and the beasts were far too beautiful for ordinary wanderers. Of course,