The Two of Swords: Part 7 Page 4

  Pleda dropped in to say goodbye. He was a sad sight. He’d wrapped himself up in coats and scarves and mittens until only his eyes and nose were visible (it was an unusually warm day, as it happened). He looked like a child’s toy.

  “Look after yourself,” Glauca said. “I need you back here in one piece, understood?”

  “Same to you,” came a voice from deep inside the insulation. “I told Raxival, you take bloody good care, and don’t listen to him if he says it’s all right, he’ll chance it. Let him know who’s the boss, I told him.”

  Glauca laughed. “That I believe,” he said. He dug in the pocket of his gown and pulled out a purse. Fifty angels. “Buy yourself a few decent meals,” he said. “Keep out the cold.”

  Pleda took the purse, glanced at it and shoved it away in a pocket. “I don’t like foreign food,” he said. “Doesn’t agree with me.”

  K. J. Parker is the pseudonym of Tom Holt, a full-time writer living in the south-west of England. When not writing, Holt is a barely competent stockman, carpenter and metalworker, a two-left-footed fencer, an accomplished textile worker and a crack shot. He is married to a professional cake decorator and has one daughter.

  Find out more about K. J. Parker and other Orbit authors by registering for the free newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net.

  Read on in The Two of Swords: Part 8.