Read Earth Magic for Free Online

not apply to them since they were not people. The stair was the distance between Morca and lesser Gets, but the distance between any Get and the Nestorians who served them was so great and obvious that it needed no emphasis.
    Haldane sat him down by the fire on a three-legged stool the match of Svein’s. Oliver closed the heavy door on the din from belowstairs.
    Morca said, “Woe, woe, woe. It is all he can say. He eats and shits and sits his stool now in Nestor, but his mind dwells in Shagetai that we left fifty years before he was born. If it weren’t for the respect I bear my father, I would cut his throat. That is a sense of tradition for you. I’m an old-fashioned man and he gives me no credit for it.”
    “You’re a generous man, Morca,” Oliver said. “If the world only knew. But what will your peers make of this marriage? You said nothing of this before you left. If you had told me what you intended, I would have advised against it.”
    “I know,” said Morca. “That is why I did not tell you. That is why I am a king and you a wizard whose spells of occasion fail. I dare. You do not. I have no peers. I am king here and I will act the king. That is why you sought me out. Do you remember? With what other man among the Gets could you dare to practice your art?”
    “None other. But I wish to practice it longer. I am your man, Morca, but what good is my advice to you if you will not hear what you have no wish to hear?”
    “I will not be told what I cannot do! Study your book and be prepared to help me hold what I have taken. That is your business.”
    Oliver pointed at Haldane who was sitting by the fire, hands clasped, elbows on knees, listening tight to every word. His head did not move, but his eyes flicked from one to the other.
    “You make the boy your pawn,” Oliver said.
    “That is his part. He is a pawn as I am a king and you a wizard. But he is a pawn who will be made into a king.”
    “Tell him of your intent. Let him know what risks he runs.”
    There was a knock then at the door and Morca crossed to open it. It was a serf bearing Morca’s ale. Morca took pitcher and leather jack and bade the man wait outside for further call.
    Oliver moved toward the door as Morca turned.
    Oliver said, “Did you know that the witch Jael was seen in the woods today? Where she appears, trouble trails after. She is a bad omen. Kings and witches—too much power stirs about us. I will study my gramarie as you suggest. It may yet take an Ultimate Spell to keep what you are taking.”
    He closed the door behind him. Morca looked after him and shook his head. It was his bad habit to speak of others when they were not present.
    “He frets too much,” he said. “He lacks guts. He doesn’t do, he dances. Give him a sword and a man to kill, and he would wash his hands.”
    Morca poured ale from pitcher to tankard and took the whole in one draft as he crossed the room. He set jack and pitcher down on the table that stood in one corner, swiped his beard, then turned and belted his son with the same backhand blow he had shown the serf. Haldane was knocked from his stool and stretched at his length upon the floor.
    Morca shook an admonishing finger at him. “That will teach you to listen and mind. You are a pawn. Mine. Learn to do as you are told.”
    Haldane nursed his head. One blow added to another, and now he had a headache, a throbbing pain behind his right eye. The blow had come when he had ceased to expect it and he had been unprepared. He picked himself up from the floor and took his seat again, sitting silently, shaking his head to clear it, ceasing to touch it, doing his best to ignore the pain he’d earned.
    He didn’t grudge Morca the blow, for why should he? It was Morca’s right. It was merely unexpected. The blow was far from the first he had taken, and he thought it fairly purchased. It was the price of hunting alone.
    But then in an outrush, he let his reasons go. “You promised in the fall that I