Read Book 1 - A Shadow of All Night Falling for Free Online

so?"
    "Oh, they think him a great clown and fool, Milady." Rolf chuckled as he leaned on the windowsill.
    "And you too, eh?"
    He smiled. "Indeed. Iwa Skolovda's needed him for a long time. Too staid."
    "Who is he? Where's he from?"
    "There you've got me. Ladyship. Because he has the ear of the people, we've tried to find out. All we know is that he rode in some time ago, after preaching in the villages to the south. There's some evidence he was in Prost Kamenets before that.
    "After arriving, he spent several days alone, then started the speeches. He's a folk-hero now. I'm sure he's harmless. Milady. The people just gather to laugh at him. He doesn't seem to mind. He makes a good deal off them."
    So. He did see my fear, she thought. And now he's trying to reassure me. Aloud, "What's he talking about? Why such a huge crowd?"
    The soldier suddenly seemed distressed. He tried to hedge.
    "Come, come, Rolf. I heard him use my name. What's he saying about me?"
    "As your Ladyship commands," he muttered. Plainly he feared losing his position as her captain. "His speech is in praise of yourself, Milady."
    A spark blazed in Nepanthe's eyes, a mote of fire that could easily become anger. "And for that they call him a fool?" The anger waxed, spread from her eyes to her brow. "Why?"
    Rolf's manner made it obvious he wanted to be elsewhere. He hemmed and hawed, shuffled, glanced at ceiling and floor, mumbled something inaudible.
    "Captain!" Nepanthe snapped. "Your reticence displeases me!" Then, in a more kindly tone, "When was the last time I punished a soldier for expressing an opinion, or for carrying bad news?"
    "I can't remember, Milady."
    "If you think carefully," she whispered, looking toward the window, "you'll remember all punishments have been for breach of discipline, not for performing duties which discomforted me! Now, speak up! Why do the people laugh when this man praises me?"
    "They despise you. Milady."
    A cold wind seemed to blow through the room. Indeed, swift-coming clouds in the north promised a winter's storm.
    "Despise me? But why?" There was a hint of hurt behind her quiet inquisition.
    "Because you're whom you are," he replied gently. "Because you're a woman, because you're in power, because you overthrew the King. Why do men despise their rulers? For all those reasons, and maybe more, but mostly because you're from Ravenkrak, get of the old foe, and because the ousted Councilmen, that you foolishly freed, keep inciting them." The cold wind sighing round the Tower, down off the Kratchnodians, seemed as much spiritual as real. Chilling.
    Would the reverberations of the Fall never cease? llkazar was dust, but echoes of the fury of her collapse still beat upon her scattered grandchildren. The shadowy wings of hatred still drifted across their lives like those of searching vultures.
    The people still roared below.
    "Tell me, Rolf-honestly-aren't the people better off since I came here? Aren't the taxes lower? Don't I care for the poor? Haven't I replaced a corrupt, lazy, indifferent government with an incorrupt, efficient, responsive one? Haven't I repressed the crime syndicates that were almost a second government before I arrived?" She shuddered, remembering ranks of heads on pikes above the city gates. "What about my subsidies for trade with Itaskia and Prost Kamenets?"
    "All true, but such things don't mean much to fools, Milady. I know. I was raised here. Your reforms have won support among the small merchants, the artisans, especially the furriers, the guildsmen, and the more thoughtful laborers. All the worst victims of the old government and syndicates. But most of the people refuse to be fooled by your chicanery. And the rich, the crime-bosses, and the deposed Councilmen, keep telling them that's what it is. And, irregardless of programs, you're a foreigner and usurper." He grinned weakly, trying to make light of the matter.
    But the cold still filled the room.
    Nepanthe eased Rolf's nerves with one of her rare