Named of the Dragon

Read Named of the Dragon for Free Online Page B

Book: Read Named of the Dragon for Free Online
Authors: Susanna Kearsley
Holland."
    Bridget smiled. "Lyn thinks that it's unethical to try to sign you up, James, while you're still on Ivor's list."
    "Really?" The beard gave his smile a roguish edge. "Unethical, maybe. Impossible, no. Are there any sandwiches left?"
    Christopher, who'd been leaning indolently in his doorway, fading with the ease of long habit into the wings while his brother made his entrance, now brought himself forward again, not challenging for centre stage, but staying in the circle of the spotlight. "Didn't they feed you up at the Hall?" he asked, pushing the sandwiches nearer to James. "Or doesn't one feed hunters?"
    "Dulls the instinct, do you mean?" His brother smiled. "No, actually they fed us rather well, but that was hours ago. I've walked the whole of the estate, since then. At least," he qualified his statement, stretching his back, "it feels as if I have."
    "You're out of shape, that's all," said Bridget, cheerfully. "It's like I told you—you can't sit all day and scribble and expect to keep in trim. You have to exercise."
    "You don't," he countered.
    "Yes, but then I have a rather high metabolism." Shrugging, she helped herself to the biscuits. "Energy to spare. And I write all my books while pacing back and forth across my sitting-room, I'm never still. Whereas you," she told him, watching while he took the chair beside her, "sit there like a lump, for hours on end. It can't be healthy."
    "Writers, my dear girl, are made to die young. All the famous ones do. Which reminds me," he said, "who were all of you discussing when I came in? This person who's rather more famous than me?"
    "Gareth." Christopher straightened away from the door frame, and reached for a biscuit. "Lyn was asking me about him."
    My brain, always loving a puzzle, latched on to the clue.
    He was talking about the playwright, of course. Bridget's playwright. And Christopher had hinted I would recognize the name. Now, who did I know that was famous, named Gareth? My memory switched on, searching backwards .. .
    James Swift passed a hand across his bearded jaw, as though the feel of it were new. "Of course, I do dispute the fact that Gareth's better known than me. After all, he hasn't written anything since Red Dragon Rising, and that was seven years ago."
    I had to swallow, hard, to keep from choking on my tea. "Red Dragon Rising?"
    "Yes. You do remember it?" His voice was dry. "I've never met a person yet who hasn't seen the blasted thing."
    That was hardly surprising. The play had hit the West End like a whirlwind, laying waste to all its competition. I'd seen it first with Martin, and the two of us had sat completely spellbound through the spectacle—a violent and poetic tale of Owen Glendower's, or, as we learnt to say, Owain Glyn Dwr's fifteenth-century rebellion, with dialogue so beautiful that, even now, whole passages stayed with me, haunted me, clung to my memory like ivy to stone. I'd gone back to watch the same production four times, on my own, and had marvelled, like everyone else, at the talent of the self-contained young Welshman who had written it, Gareth Gwyn Morgan.
    An ordinary-looking man, as I recalled. I couldn't quite picture his face, but he hadn't been hahdsome, or brooding, or wildly passionate. And he'd shown little interest in publicity. While the critics had raved, and the West End, electric with anticipation, had waited for Morgan's next masterpiece, the man himself, in imitation of the hero of his play, had slipped from London like a shadow, eluding any journalist who tried to follow.
    And then, a few years later, when the play was adapted into an equally lyrical film that turned heads at Cannes, there had been another ripple of excitement, like an earthquake's aftershock, and word had been passed round that Gareth Gwyn Morgan would surface again. But he hadn't, and after a few half-hearted tries to run the man to ground, the newspapers, defeated, had lost interest.
    I myself had formed an image of the playwright as a

Similar Books

Oracle Bones

Peter Hessler

Dominion

Marissa Farrar

Asking For Trouble

Kristina Lloyd