Read In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) for Free Online Page B

Wulfweard and his nameless lady, shows me I must return to the High King without delay.”
    Harrik stood. “Let me take my leave of you then.”
    They clasped hands and each commended the other to God. Harrik rode away feeling moderately better. The High King’s letter crackled in his bosom. His old loyalties sold for new safety and peace, and his son’s life.
    All at once, his horse stumbled. A curse slipped out of Harrik. The animal recovered its gait, but not completely. It limped now, favoring its left foreleg.
    “God’s legs,” muttered Harrik, as he halted the beast and climbed to the ground. He bent down and with a practiced hand, coaxed the horse to lift its hoof and show him the bottom.
    There, a round stone shoved deep into the soft frog of the hoof. Harrik retrieved the hoof pick from his pack and swearing in each of the three languages he knew, finally managed to pry it loose. There was no question of being able to ride any further, though. The animal was lamed. He would have to walk the rest of the way.
    He let the horse drop its hoof and looked at the stone. It was a round-bottomed, sharp-edged chunk of flint that had done the damage.
    How does such a thing come to be in a forest? This belongs on some low riverbank
. He drew his arm back to hurl the thing into the bushes.
    But as he looked where he aimed, he saw a huge black raven sitting on the branch of a maple tree. The bird gave a rough, mocking croak and flew into the air.
    Harrik’s fist closed around the stone. His heart grew chill and inside him a small quiet voice told him the horse’s lameness did not matter now. Harrik, Hullward’s son, would not reach home after all.

Chapter Two
    The evening meal was a mostly silent affair. Risa, still disturbed by the events of the day, had no appetite. She could only force down a piece of bread sopped in gravy from the mutton, and for once her mother did not chide her for it. Father attended to his drinking and little else. At last, Risa excused herself and fled the hall. Aeldra rose primly to follow her, but Risa waved her maid back to her seat. She did not want that nosing, talkative presence now. She wanted to return to her chamber, to sit alone and try to regain some composure. But as she mounted the narrow, spiraling stairs she paused, one hand resting on the cool stone of the wall, and she remembered what her mother had told her.
    She did not want to spy on her parents to find out what it should have been her right to know. But mother had spoken truthfully. If, after turning down five separate suitors, father had not told her what his reasoning was, he had left her with no choice but to gain that understanding by artifice.
    At the top of the stairs, Risa turned right instead of left and entered her mother’s sitting room.
    The room was empty. All were still at board. The great embroidery frame with its partly completed scene of a lion and a unicorn kneeling before the Virgin waited for its mistress’s touch. Other tapestries, some completed by her mother’s hand, some by ladies gone before, hung about the room. Scenes of hunts, pastoral weddings and orchards blocked out the worst of the drafts and dressed the bare stone with summer colors. After a heartbeat’s indecision, Risa lifted the corner of the orchard tapestry and ducked behind it, drawing her hems in close to her body so they would not peep out and give her away.
    She felt completely ridiculous; a naughty child at some mischievous game.
    Think of Vernus
, she counseled herself as she attempted to find the patience to wait. The tapestry smelled of old dust, and the crowning of this whole nonsensical affair would surely be if she gave herself away with a sneeze.
    Think of finally knowing why you are being forbidden to marry. Think of becoming mistress in your own house
. Vernus was kind, and had beautiful eyes. He would be good to her, as mother swore father had once been. But Vernus would not change as father had. Surely he would