Yesterday's Kings Read Online Free

“Word has it that she favors her husband’s captain. Likely you saw her riding out with Amadis. He’s captain of the guard.”
    “And the other?”
    “That would be Abra,” Andrias said. “Lord Bartram’s daughter by his first marriage. Don’t you know?”
    Cullyn shook his head.
    “Bartram was made a Border Lord by Kristoferos,” Andrias explained. “Then Kristoferos died and Khoros came to power. Didn’t your father teach you any history?”
    Cullyn shook his head again.
    Andrias sighed. “Well, anyway, we’re now ruled by Khoros, who mistrusts anyone appointed by Kristoferos. But … to avoid civil war, he could not risk offending the Border Lords appointed by his brother. So he left them inplace and sent them captains of his own persausion, who’d watch and report back to him. Amadis is one such. The king’s man. And—is rumor true, the lady Vanysse’s lover.”
    “Why,” Cullyn asked, in his innocence, “does Lord Bartram allow that?”
    “Politics,” Andrias said bluntly. “As I understand it, the lady Vanysse was chosen for Lord Bartram by Khoros himself, as a marriage of convenience. Her dowry was substantial and she is, undoubtedly, beautiful—and half Bartram’s age.” He grinned cynically. “I imagine she favors Bartram once in a while, so he accepts her favors and turns a blind eye. And should he argue, he’ll find the king’s troops knocking on his door. He’d not want that any more than Khoros—it’d occupy too many men, to no one’s good, and leave the way open for the fey folk to come back.”
    “Do you believe they would?” Cullyn asked.
    Andrias shrugged. “Perhaps.”
    “They’ve not,” Cullyn said. “Surely not since my father fought the Great War.”
    “As did I,” Andrias told him. “But I’d not see them back.”
    “Why not?”
    Andrias shrugged again. “They’re different. They’re not like us. The gods know, they set up the Barrier across the Alagordar.”
    That barrier no man could cross, or return from. There was no understanding of it, save that it confused mens’ minds and turned them around. The great river ran through the heart of the forest, from the Kandarian side to the other, which men named Duran. Cullyn had been there often enough, watching the farther bank, where willows drooped as naturally, and waterbirds—coots and moorhens, ducks and stately swans—wentabout their business as if all were normal. Otters swam there, hunting the fish that he sometimes caught. Neither was the river very deep: a horseman might ford it easily … but if he tried, either he disappeared forever, or found himself fording back to the Kandarian side. It was Durrym magic—what the fey folk had established to protect themselves after the Great War—and no man understood quite how they had gained that magic.
    “Perhaps,” Cullyn said, “because we drove them out and they wanted their own land, without us.”
    Andrias laughed and shook his head. “You’ve lived alone too long in that forest, lad. You should listen more to what the Church says.”
    Cullyn shrugged in turn.
    “Anyway,” Andrias said, “I shall get the best prices I can. Give me a day, eh?”
    Cullyn ducked his head in agreement, and then wondered what to do with the remainder of the day. Elvira was gone and he could hardly hope to see Lord Bartram’s daughter again, for all her beauty occupied his mind. There had been something there in that flash of contact and irritation that … he was not sure; only that it was hopeless.
    He went out from the inn to wander the small streets again, studying such things as he could not afford. Swords, and handsomely tooled scabbards; saddles accoutred with gold and silver chasings; bright brass stirrups and cooking pots beyond his means. He grew miserable and returned to the inn, where he knew friends and would not feel so alone and poor.
    The common room was empty of guests at this hour. Martia stood behind the long serving table, polishing mugs and