Then he stepped down from the dais and embraced Borric, then Erland. Anita came behind and hugged both fiercely, lingering a bit when she held Borric’s cheek next to her own. Then Elena and Nicholas were there to greet them, and Borric held his sister close to him, saying, ‘After those Keshian noblewomen, you are a simple and rare treasure.’
‘Simple!’ she said, pushing him away. ‘I like that!’ Grinning at Erland, she said, ‘You must tell me about the ladies of the Keshian court. Everything. What did they wear?’
Borric and Erland exchanged glances and started to laugh. Borric said, ‘I don’t think you’ll be starting any fashions here, little sister. Keshian ladies wear almost no clothing at all. While Erland and I found it very attractive, I think Father would take one look at you in Keshian court regalia and have you locked away in your room forever.’
Elena blushed. ‘Well, tell me everything anyway. We’re going to have a wedding celebration for Baron James and I’ll want something different.’
Nicholas had been quietly waiting next to his father, and Borric and Erland as one noticed him. ‘Hello, little brother,’ said Borric. He bent down hands on knees so he could look Nicholas in the eyes. ‘Have you been well?’
Nicholas threw his arms around Borric’s neck and began to cry. ‘They said you were dead. I knew you couldn’t be, but they said you were. I was so scared.’
Erland felt tears come unbidden to his own eyes and he uncharacteristically reached out and pulled Elena into his arms, hugging her again. Anita wept for joy, as did Elena, and even Arutha was hard-pressed to keep a dry eye.
After a moment, Borric picked up the boy and said, ‘That’s enough, Nicky. We’re both just fine.’
Erland said, ‘Yes, we are. And we missed you.’
Nicholas wiped away his tears and said, ‘You did?’
‘Yes, we did,’ answered Borric. ‘I met a boy in Kesh who was only a few years older than you. He made me understand just how much I did miss my little brother.’
Nicholas said, ‘What’s his name?’
‘His name was Suli Abul,’ said Borric with a tear running down his face.
‘That’s a strange name,’ said Nicholas. ‘What happened to him?’
‘I’ll tell you about him some other time.’
‘When?’ said Nicholas with the impatience of most seven-year-old boys.
Borric put the boy down. ‘Maybe in a day or two, we’ll take a boat out of the harbour and go fishing. Would you like that?’
Nicholas nodded his head emphatically, and Erland tousled his hair.
Arutha motioned for James to come away from the others and then when they were off a little way, Duke Gardan joined them.
Arutha said, ‘First of all, I’ll want to talk to you at length tomorrow. But from your reports, I think we owe you thanks.’
James said, ‘It was something that needed to be done. Really, the boys deserve most of the credit. If Borric had returned to Krondor rather than risk his life trying to catch up with us, or had Erland not been so quick to see through some very clever ruses … who knows what harm could have come of it?’
Arutha put his hand on James’s shoulder. ‘It’s become something of a joke between us about you being named Duke of Krondor someday, hasn’t it?’
James smiled. ‘Yes, but I still want the job.’
Gardan, his seamed face showing disbelief, said, ‘After all you’ve just been through, you still want to sit at the right hand of power?’
James glanced at the happy faces in the court and said, ‘There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.’
Arutha said, ‘Good. Because I have something to tell you. Gardan is finally retiring.’
James’s eyes widened. ‘Then …’
‘No,’ said Arutha. ‘I’m offering the post of Duke of Krondor to Earl Geoffrey of Ravenswood, who’s serving in Rillanon with Lyam’s First Advisor.’
James’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you saying. Arutha?’
The Prince smiled his crooked smile and James felt his stomach turn cold. ‘When the festivities of your wedding celebration are over, my dear Jimmy,’ said Arutha, ‘you and your lady are bound for Rillanon. You are to take Geoffrey’s place as second in command to Duke Guy of Rillanon. Bas-Tyra is perhaps the shrewdest man I’ve ever met and you still have things to learn. Guy will teach you.’ He grinned, one of the rare occasions James had ever seen him do that. ‘And who knows, when Borric is at last King, he may make you the next Duke of Rillanon.’
Motioning for his wife to come to his side, James slipped his arm around her waist and with a dry note said, ‘Amos Trask is right about you, you know. You do take the fun out of life.’
Afterword
THIS IS THE SECOND book I’ve elected to rewrite a decade or more after original publication. The first, Magician, was revised for the reasons outlined in the Foreword to the Revised/Author’s Preferred Edition. In short, it was to return the book to my original vision, reintroducing text that had been cut by editorial request prior to the original publication.
Prince of the Blood is a completely different story.
Let me start off by saying, I don’t reread my work after it’s published. Rewrites, responses to editorial requests, proof reading manuscripts, then reading galley proof pages, and by the time a book is published, I’m pretty sick of it. Besides, I’m usually off working on another project as soon as I finish one. At this writing, I’ve just turned in my twenty-first novel, King of Foxes.
Prince of the Blood was to me my least satisfying work. There are many reasons, some very personal which I won’t share, but suffice it to say that for whatever reasons, the book didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted. I always felt there were two things I wished I had done differently, the development of the twins, who were never as likeable by the end of the book as I wanted them to be, and the ending of the book itself.
For the first problem, I saw the flaw in the narration itself, where things got very busy and we never had much time to see Erland and Borric reflect on what they had experienced. I felt that could be fixed with a bit of introspection and emotional response here and there.
But that ending …? The problem was it was an action/adventure fantasy that suddenly in the last turns into a Victorian Murder Mystery, one in which ‘Sherlock Nakor’ reveals who did it. Even when I finished the book back in 1988, I knew I had a problem, but publishing deadlines prevented me from ‘fixing it.’
And the book went on to become a New York Times, and Times of London bestseller, so I could hardly complain.
But recent events have offered me the opportunity to revisit my ‘problem child book,’ so I gladly took up the challenge.
When I wrote the foreword to the revised Magician I promised the reader that nothing significant had changed, that the story was essentially as it had been before. Such is not the case with Prince of the Blood. Yes, the last few pages are identical, with the reunited Borric and Erland returning home, wiser for their experiences, but from the time Borric enters the palace until then, things are quite a bit different than before.
I hope the reader will forgive me the vanity of going back to a previous work and trying to make it better than before. If the experience does not entertain, I apologize, but if you find this version a little more exciting, a little more fun, then I feel it was worth the effort. Either way, thank you for letting me take one more bash at this yarn.
Raymond E. Feist
San Diego, California 2003
Acknowledgments
As is usual, I am deeply indebted to the talents of other people in finishing a project such as Prince of the Blood. So I would like publicly to thank the following people:
April Abrams for giving me what she had of Kesh and letting me bend it beyond recognizable shape.
Pat LoBrutto, my editor, for putting up with one type of madness after another.
Janny Wurts, for letting me take care of one problem before giving me another, and for taking such good care of our ho
rse.
Stephen Abrams and Jon Everson for thinking up the entire mess that I play in the first place.
The other ‘fathers and mothers’ of Midkemia for letting me play in their world again.
Peter Schneider for his ‘usual’ duty above and beyond.
All the fine people at Grafton Books who work so hard at making things work.
Jonathan Matson, my agent and friend, for keeping me pointed north when I need to be and for letting me run amok when I need to.
And, most of all, Kathy, my wife, who is mentioned somewhere else in this work for making everything around me work.
Without the goodwill and loving care of the above people, none of this would be possible.
RAYMOND E. FEIST
The King’s Buccaneer
Book Two of Krondor’s Sons
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpervoyagerbooks.com
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1992
Copyright © Raymond E. Feist 1992
Cover Illustration © Nik Keevil
Raymond E. Feist asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Source ISBN: 9780586203224
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007385393
Version: 2016–07–27
For Ethan and Barbara
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: Meeting
Chapter One: Decision
Chapter Two: Voyage
Chapter Three: Crydee
Chapter Four: Squire
Chapter Five: Instruction
Chapter Six: Raid
Chapter Seven: Choices
Chapter Eight: Accident
Chapter Nine: Freeport
Chapter Ten: Discoveries
Chapter Eleven: Pursuit
Chapter Twelve: Disaster
Chapter Thirteen: Ascent
Chapter Fourteen: Bandits
Chapter Fifteen: Discovery
Chapter Sixteen: River
Chapter Seventeen: City
Chapter Eighteen: Secrets
Chapter Nineteen: Explorations
Chapter Twenty: Plans
Chapter Twenty-One: Escape
Chapter Twenty-Two: Ambush
Chapter Twenty-Three: Sea Chase
Chapter Twenty-Four: Battle
Chapter Twenty-Five: Wedding
Acknowledgments
• PROLOGUE •
Meeting
GHUDA STRETCHED.
Through the door behind him came a woman’s voice: ‘Get away from there!’
The former mercenary guard sat back in his chair on the porch of his inn, settling his feet upon the hitching rail. In the background the usual evening serenade was commencing. While rich travelers stayed at the large hostels in the city or at palatial inns along the silvery beaches, the Inn of the Dented Helm, owned by Ghuda Bulé, catered to a rougher clientele: wagon drivers, mercenaries, farmers bringing crops into the city, and rural soldiers.
‘Do I have to summon the city guards!’ cried the woman from inside the common room.
A large man, Ghuda had found enough hard work keeping up the inn that he hadn’t run to fat and he still kept his weapons finely honed; more times than he cared to recall, he had been forced to toss one or another customer through the door.
Evenings, just before dining, were his favorite time of the day. Sitting in his chair, he could see the sun set over the bay of Elarial, the brilliant glare of the day dimming to a gentler blush that colored the white buildings soft oranges and golds. It was one of the few pleasures he managed to reserve for himself in an otherwise demanding life. A loud crash sounded from within the building, and Ghuda resisted the urge to investigate. His woman would let him know when he was needed to intervene.
‘Get out of here! Take that fighting outside!’
Ghuda took out a dirk, one of the two he habitually wore on his belt, and absently began to polish it. The sound of broken crockery echoed from within the inn. A girl’s shriek followed quickly after, then the sounds of fists striking bodies joined in.
Ghuda looked at the sunset as he polished his blade. At almost sixty years old, his face was an aging map of leather – showing years of caravan guard duty, fighting, too much bad weather, bad food, and bad wine – dominated by an oft-broken nose. Most of his hair was gone on top, leaving him with a shoulder-length grey fringe that began halfway between crown and ears. Never one to be called handsome, he still had something about him, a calm, open directness, that caused people to trust and like him.
He let his gaze wander across the bay, silver and rose highlights from the sunset sparkling atop emerald waters, as seabirds squawked and dove for their supper. The heat of the day had gone, leaving a soft cool breeze off the bay, faint with the tang of sea salt, and for a moment he wondered if life could be better for one of his low station. Then he squinted against the glare of the sun as it touched the horizon, for out of the west came a figure purposefully marching down the road toward the little inn.
At first it was nothing more than a black speck against the glare of the setting sun, but soon it took on detail. Something about the figure set off an itch in the back of Ghuda’s brain, and he fixed his gaze upon the stranger as he came clearly into view. A slender, bandy-legged man wearing a dusty and torn blue robe, tied above one shoulder, approached. He was an Isalani, a citizen of Isalan, one of the nations to the south within the Empire of Great Kesh. He carried an old black rucksack over one shoulder and used a long staff as a walking stick.
When the man was close enough for his features to be clearly identified, Ghuda said a silent prayer: ‘Gods, not him.’
A wailing cry of anger came from within the building as Ghuda stood up. The man reached the porch and unshouldered his bag. A ring of fuzz surrounded an otherwise bald head; a face resembling a vulture looked solemn as he regarded Ghuda, then broke into a wide smile. His black eyes were narrow slits as he grinned at Ghuda. He opened the dusty old bag. In a familiar, gravelly tone he said, ‘Want an orange?’ He reached into the bag and withdrew two large oranges.
Ghuda caught the fruit that was tossed to him and said, ‘Nakor, what in the Seven Lower Hells brings you here?’
Nakor the Isalani, occasional card sharp and con man, wizard in some sense of the word, and undoubted lunatic in Ghuda’s estimation, was a onetime companion of the former mercenary. Nine years before, they had met and traveled with a young vagabond who’d convinced Ghuda – Nakor needed no persuading – to travel on a journey to the City of Kesh, a descent into the heart of murder, politics, and attempted treason. The vagabond had turned out to be Prince Borric, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of the Isles, and Ghuda had emerged from that encounter with enough gold to travel and find this inn, the previous owner’s widow, and the most glorious sunsets he had ever seen. He wished never again to experience anything like that journey in
this life. Now, with sinking heart, he knew that wish was likely to be a vain one.
The bandy-legged little man said, ‘I came to get you.’
Ghuda sat back down in his chair as an ale cup came sailing through the door. Nakor nimbly dodged it and said, ‘Some good fight you have there. Wagon drivers?’
Ghuda shook his head. ‘No guests tonight. That’s just my woman’s seven kids tearing up the common room, as usual.’
Nakor dropped his rucksack and sat down upon the hitching rail and said, ‘Well, give me something to eat, then we’ll go.’
Returning to sharpening his dirk, Ghuda said, ‘Go where?’
‘Krondor.’
Ghuda shut his eyes a moment. The only person they both knew in Krondor was Prince Borric. ‘This is not a perfect existence, by any measure, Nakor, but I’m contented to remain here. Now go away.’
The little man bit into his orange, pulled off a large piece of peel, and spat it out. He bit deeply into the orange and slurped loudly as he did. Wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, he said, ‘Contented with that?’ He pointed into the darkened doorway, through which the wail of a child carried over the general shouts and breakage.
Ghuda said, ‘Well, it’s a hard life, sometimes, but rarely is anyone trying to kill me; I know where I’m sleeping every night, and I eat well and bathe regularly. My woman’s affectionate, and the children –’ Another child’s loud shriek was punctuated by the sound of an indignant infant’s wailing cry. Looking at Nakor, Ghuda asked, ‘I’m going to regret asking this, but why do we need to go to Krondor?’
‘Got to see a man,’ Nakor said as he sat back on the hitching rail, hooking one foot behind a post to keep his balance.
‘One thing about you, Nakor, you never bore a man to death with unnecessary details. What man?’
‘Don’t know. But we’ll find out when we get there.’
Ghuda signed. ‘Last time I saw you, you were riding north out of the City of Kesh, heading for that island of magicians, Stardock. You were wearing a great cape and blue robe of magnificent weave, the horse was a black desert stallion worth a year’s wages, and you had a purse full of the Empress’s gold.
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