Free The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron Page A

head.
    ‘I fear the Captal will find us a Gallish candidate,’ Ailwin said.
    Random shrugged. ‘We got the mint. We won’t get the bishop. This is the life of court.’ He got to his feet and tottered into the hall supported between two servants.
    The Captal was there already, attended by a pair of his omnipresent squires and his new lieutenant, fresh from Galle – the Sieur de Rohan. All three were big men in full armour.
    ‘This is the King’s notion of a knight,’ Rohan said, as Random passed.
    He stopped. Turned his head, and smiled agreeably at the King’s champion and his friend. ‘Do you mean that as an insult, Ser?’ he asked.
    ‘Take it as you will,’ Rohan tossed off.
    Random hobbled forward and put his face in the younger man’s face, very close. ‘You mean, you are afraid to tell me what you really think?’
    The Sieur de Rohan flushed. ‘I mean that it is not my way to converse with a lowborn of no consequence.’
    Random reached up and none too gently pulled the man’s beard. ‘I think you are just afraid.’ He laughed. ‘Come and issue me a cartel, when I’m whole. Or shut up and go home.’ He smiled at the Captal. ‘I hope I’ve made myself clear.’
    The Sieur reached for his dagger.
    The Captal caught his wrist. ‘Ser Gerald lost a foot in a feat of arms that any of us would envy,’ he said. ‘You will restrain yourself.’
    ‘I’ll kill him!’ Rohan said.
    Gaston d’Eu materialised out of a side room and placed himself between Rohan and Random, who was standing his ground. He bowed to Random. Random returned his bow and hobbled away.
    ‘We’re in for some hard times,’ he said to Master Pye.
    Ten Leagues North of Albinkirk – Ser John Crayford
    Ser John was not dressed in armour.
    In fact, he lay on the bank of a small stream dressed in hose so old that the knees had layers of patches, and a cote he’d bought from a peasant farmer ten years before. It was a nameless colour a little lighter than the fur of a barn mouse, and very warm in the late summer sunlight.
    Rain had fallen in the night, and there were drops of water caught in the streamside ferns. They caught fire in the rising sun, like tiny, magnificent jewels burning with hermetical fire against the early morning transparent black of the stream that rolled slowly by.
    In his right hand he had a rod four paces long, and from it dangled a horsehair line half again as long, and at the end was a hook with a tuft of feathers. He moved cautiously, like a man hunting deer – or something more dangerous. His eyes remained on the wonder of the water-jewels caught in the ferns and he watched them, his heart overflowing, for as long as the effect lasted – a few dozen heartbeats.
    And then they became mere drops of water again as the sun’s inexorable rise changed the angle of light, and he moved over the low ridge at the edge of the stream, saw the rock that marked his spot, and his wrist moved, as delicate as a sword cut and as skilled, and his fly sailed back, over his head – he felt the change in tension as his line loaded – and he flicked his rod forward. The line unrolled as if from a drum, and his fly settled on the still black water with the delicacy of a faery harvesting souls.
    Even as he released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding, a leviathan exploded from the deeps in a deep green and rainbow-coloured explosion of power, seized its prey and fled for the depths—
    Ser John stood straighter and lifted the tip of his rod, sinking his hook home.
    The trout resisted the tug, fled, and then leaped clear of the water. Sir John turned the fish over, trying to keep it from putting its full weight on the braided horsehair. He felt the weight gather and stepped to the right, the way he would if facing a deadlier adversary, taking the fish off line and turning it slightly so that it couldn’t get a firm purchase on the water with its fins. It tipped onto its side – and he pulled.
    In a moment he had the