Read The High King's Tomb for Free Online

but if any of the carriages are to move, we must get Master Coyle’s out of the way first.”
    It wasn’t entirely true, but Karigan blessed his quick thinking.
    The king, as if stunned by the sight of Karigan in anything other than green, made a weak gesture. “Of course. Proceed.”
    With another bow, Braymer led Karigan down the steps and over to his waiting carriage, the older gentleman, his servant, falling in step behind them. Karigan was relieved, with that audience looking on, that she hadn’t floundered too badly in the idiotic shoes, or fallen. The carriage driver and Braymer made her ascent into the carriage as effortless as possible.
    When all were seated, the driver snapped the reins and the horses stepped out smartly. Karigan glanced once more at the king watching them from atop the steps. He must wonder why she was dressed up, where she was going, and who the young man was that accompanied her.
    Good, she thought, not without a certain amount of spiteful satisfaction.

    The carriage ride proved stiff and awkward with Styles, Braymer’s manservant, watching Karigan down his nose. He queried after Karigan’s chaperone, for surely the young lady must be accompanied by one, and when she informed him that she indeed had none, he grunted with an expression of displeasure, and spoke in rapid Rhovan to Braymer. Braymer’s reply was sharp.
    Karigan did not know much Rhovan, but she caught the gist of the discussion. Rhovanny was a far more conservative country in regard to its beliefs and customs, and a woman’s place in society, than Sacoridia. The women might toil in the fields, bear endless children, or manage a husband’s lands and household while he attended to “business” elsewhere, but it was rare for a woman to own a business, and unheard of for a woman to serve the king in a uniformed capacity, as Karigan did. Women bearing swords were considered immodest; those who admitted to such aspirations were regarded as ill of mind, and were treated as such.
    Rhovanny tolerated the larger role women played in Sacoridian society. It had to if it wanted to participate in commercial and political endeavors with its neighbor. Rhovanny also knew Sacoridia’s history: women, and even children, had taken up arms during the Long War to defend the decimated country from the legions of Mornhavon the Black when so many of the menfolk had been slain on the field of battle. It had widened the role of women forever after, and though women could choose to continue on in traditional roles or to operate businesses or to serve the monarchy in many capacities, those who chose to carry swords remained in the minority.
    Rhovans were polite about Sacoridia’s perceived oddities, but they didn’t necessarily like them or approve of them. Styles certainly did not, and Karigan was sure the absence of a chaperone placed her in the category of “loose women” as defined by Rhovan culture. She wondered what Styles would think if he saw her in uniform with her saber girded at her side. She smiled at the image that came to mind, and thought that this was going to be an interesting afternoon.
    The carriage rumbled over cobblestones off Sacor City’s main thoroughfare, the Winding Way, onto Gryphon Street, one of the city’s more artistic districts. Here bookbinders and jewelers practiced their crafts, and sculptors and painters exhibited their work, hoping to attract the attention of wealthy patrons. Music wafted from an open, top story window, floating down to the street below. Fine harp music it was, music of the heavens, followed by a clamorous clash of strings and a wail.
    “It is rubbish! Everything I compose! Absolute rubbish!”
    Karigan winced at the anguish in the harpist’s voice. The music had sounded nice to her.
    Gryphon Street was lined with bookshops and the workshops of luthiers, tailors, weavers, and potters; pubs, tobacco shops, and the occasional fortune-teller. It was also said that no less than forty poets