Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,14

temper your anger with good sense. You did well in walking out of House Bedwyr, and for that you have my respect. We are given a long rein from the duke of Montfort, and longer still from the throne in Carlisle, and it would be good to keep it that way.”

“What did Ethan do?” Luthien pressed, not convinced.

“He did nothing, other than protest—loudly!” Gahris snapped back.

“And that disappoints you?”

Gahris snorted and spun back to face the fire. “He is my eldest son,” he replied, “in line to be the eorl of Bedwydrin. But what might that mean for the folk?”

It seemed to Luthien that Gahris was no longer talking to him; he was, rather, talking to himself, as if trying to justify something.

“Trouble, I say,” the old man went on, and he seemed very old indeed to Luthien at that moment. “Trouble for Ethan, for House Bedwyr, for all the island.” He spun back around suddenly, one finger pointing Luthien’s way. “Trouble for you!” he cried, and Luthien, surprised, took a step backward. “Never will stubborn Ethan come to learn his place,” Gahris went on, muttering again and turning back to the fire. “Once eorl, he would surely facilitate his own death and bring ruin upon House Bedwyr and bring watchful eyes upon all of Bedwydrin. Oh, what a fool is a proud man! Never! Never! Never!”

Gahris had worked himself into quite a state, pumping his fist into the air as he spoke, and Luthien’s first instincts were to go to him and try to calm him. Something held the young man back, though, and instead he quietly left the room. He loved his father, had respected him all of his life, but now the man’s words rang hollowly in Luthien’s ears—ears that still heard the fateful crossbow click and the pitiful wheeze of Garth Rogar’s last breath.

CHAPTER 4

WET WITH THE BLOOD OF A FALLEN ENEMY

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN had the parents of a king not met? What might have been had a hero been cut down in his or her youth by an arrow that whizzed harmlessly past, cracking the air barely an inch away? Often does the simplest chance affect the history of nations, and so it was that August night, when Luthien walked out of House Bedwyr to the stables, where he found Ethan readying a horse, saddlebags stuffed with provisions.

Luthien moved near his brother, eyeing him curiously, letting his expression ask the obvious question.

“I have been sent away,” Ethan answered.

Luthien seemed not to understand.

“I am to go to the south,” Ethan went on, spitting out every word with disgust, “to travel with the king’s soldiers who would go into Gascony and fight beside the Gascons in their war with the Kingdom of Duree.”

“A noble cause,” replied Luthien, too overwhelmed to consider his words.

“A mercenary cause,” Ethan snarled back. “A mercenary cause for an unlawful king.”

“Then why go?”

Ethan stopped tightening the saddlebags and turned an incredulous look upon his naive little brother. Luthien just shrugged, still not catching on.

“Because the eorl of Bedwydrin has ordered me to go.” Ethan spelled it out plainly and went back to his work.

It made no sense to Luthien, and so he did not reply, did not even blink.

“It will bring honor to our family and to all Bedwydrin, so said Gahris,” Ethan went on.

Luthien studied his brother carefully, at first jealous that Gahris had chosen Ethan for the campaign over him. “Would not Blind-Striker serve you better if you go for the honor of House Bedwyr?” he asked, noticing the unremarkable weapon sheathed on Ethan’s belt.

Again came that disbelieving, condescending look. “Can you be so incredibly blind to the world?” Ethan asked, and he got his answer when Luthien winced.

“Gahris sends me,” the elder son went on, “following the whispered suggestions of Aubrey. Gahris sends me to die.”

The casual way Ethan spoke struck Luthien more than the words. He grabbed Ethan roughly by the shoulder and spun him away from his horse, forcing his brother to face him squarely.

“I am not his choice for the succession,” Ethan spat out, and Luthien, remembering his earlier conversation with his father, could not disagree. “But the rules are clear. I am the eldest son, thus I am next in line as eorl of Bedwydrin.”

“I do not challenge your right,” Luthien replied, still missing the point.

“But Gahris does,” Ethan explained. “And my reputation of disloyalty has gone beyond Bedwydrin, it would seem.”

“So Gahris will send you out with the army to win glory and restore