Free The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) by Karen Miller Page A

But—”
    “Give me none of your buts!” Humbert said, fierce. “It’s the truth,boy, and so I’ll remind you till the maggot doubt stops its gnawing of your guts.”
    The barking foxes fell silent. Roric pressed the heel of his hand against the aching scar across his left thigh, where once a swinging blade had caught him. Not even his heavy cloak could keep out the cold and its torment of old, healed hurts. In the deeper gloom behind him, the muffled thump of horses’ shifting hooves and a clinking of bits and stirrups.
    “Roric…” Humbert stepped closer. “You stand a stone’s throw from your heart-rotten cousin, sword ready to defend Berold’s duchy. At your back stand Clemen’s best nobles and their men, pledged to fight in your name. Would you shame them? Shame me? Shame the lord Guimar?”
    As ever, the mention of his dead father was salt rubbed in an open wound. “Humbert, do not—”
    “He was friend to me like none other, Roric. A count of such renown, the minstrels still write songs of him. And that brave man died full of fear, knowing his brother for a craven lumpet and his brother’s child for much worse.”
    “Even so.” Roric swallowed a sigh. “It was my uncle Baderon born Berold’s heir, not my father, and Harald born
his
heir with no taint of bastardry on him.”
    Humbert growled his displeasure. “
Boy
—”
    The fisted blow, when it came, rattled Roric’s teeth and left a burning pain in his arm, even through the charcoal-hardened links of his mail. In the moon-silvered darkness Humbert’s glare showed fear and fury.
    “I see the maggot’s in your brain, not your guts! You say this rumption
now
, as we stand ankled in mud with our sharpened swords thirsty for blood? You–you gormless bull-pizzle! You
tribbit
! What ill faery flapped its dust in your dreams that you’d spill—”
    Roric raised a calming hand. “First changelings, now faeries? I hope you don’t speak of such things where an exarchite can hear you. Our pagan days are behind us, or so the Exarch holds.”
    “I’ll spit on the Exarch, and I’ll spit on you after,” said Humbert, his barrel chest heaving. “But first you tell me truly, Roric. Are you wishing you’d not started this?”
    “Did I start it? Or did you? I scarce remember.”
    Humbert snorted. “What does it matter? The end is all. Harald’s end, and his vileness with him. Are you feared, Roric? I’ll not believe it.You’ve served your time in the Marches, your sword is blooded a dozen times over. Don’t ask me to believe your courage fails you.”
    “It doesn’t. But Humbert, don’t
you
feel the weight of this? No duke of Clemen has ever been deposed.” He shivered. “Making history gives a man pause. So I’ve paused, my lord. I’m thinking.”
    “
Thinking?
”
    He loved Humbert almost as much as he’d loved Guimar, but love didn’t kill less kindly feelings. “You’ve known me seventeen years, my lord. Tell me when I didn’t chew over my choices like a hound chews gristle.”
    Another blow, fist to his back this time. “Your chewing time is
done
, Roric! It’s weeks you’ve had to chew this bone. What’s changed? Are you telling me this whoreson Harald sings a sweet tune now, and you’re the only man who hears it?”
    If only he could say that. If only Harald had come to his senses. Instead, he looked at Humbert and shook his head. “No. My cousin’s voice is as ugly as ever.”
    “And his deeds so foul they’d shame a soul-eater,” said Humbert, giving no ground. “Let history tend itself. It’s
right
we do here. Stiffen your sinews, boy. You swore to me, you swore to
them
—” His thumb jerked at the shadows behind them, at the men who’d pledged themselves to this night’s dark task. “—and all those lords waiting down south in Eaglerock, that your heart was in this. Are you Guimar’s son, Roric, or are
you
the cursed changeling?”
    “Don’t plague me with Guimar,” he said, teeth gritted.