Chapter 10: The East Road

On Thursday morning Leander came down to the carriage yard at seven in his court coat.

He stood looking at the coach with a hard, suspicious face.

"We go by the river road," he said.

The coachman, a stout man with eleven years in the house, scratched under his hat.

"Your Grace, the river road's forty minutes longer.

"The east road crosses the Ferrow Bridge and puts you at the palace gate in half an hour."

"The river road."

"But, Your Grace..."

"Do you want your wages?"

The coachman looked at Corwin.

Corwin looked at the sky and said, "The duke's wish is clear."

They took the river road.

It ran along the water for an hour in the slow green light.

Willows trailed in the current, and a heron stood very still in the shallows.

Leander sat across from Corwin with his gloved hands folded on his knee and his eyes on the window.

He did not say a word the whole way.

Corwin watched him count.

His lips moved very slightly at each milestone.

The king saw them for twelve minutes.

He was an old man who had been broad once, propped in a chair by a window with a rug over his knees.

He asked Leander if he was eating.

Leander said yes.

The king asked if he was lonely.

Leander said no.

Corwin stood by the wall and saw the old man's hand shake on the rug.

He thought, nobody has asked this boy a true question in ten years.

In the corridor afterward, Dorian was waiting.

His face was grey.

"The Ferrow Bridge is down," he said.

Corwin felt Leander go still beside him.

"It went at nine this morning under a hay cart.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Villain Duke's Butler Served Him Too Well from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.