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After several long minutes, Grand Master said, “Why did you steal the pony?” “It’s mine. He met the gaze of the terrible gray eyes and steeled himself not to twitch, fidget, or even swallow. He was not invited to take the vacant chair. What was the use of prolonging the matter? Why not throw them both out and be done with it? The iron-studded door thudded shut. “You will withdraw, please, while I speak with the lad.” The boy watched uneasily as the Squire rose, bowed low, and departed. Grand Master drained his wine and replaced the goblet on the table. He was going to be sent home to Dimpleshire most-wondrous fast. There could be no chance at all of his being accepted. Don’t suppose even you can make a man out of such trash.” He had been telling everything-the boy’s entire life from his shameful birth out of wedlock fourteen years ago to last week’s attempt to run away and the subsequent whipping, with not one prank or misdeed overlooked. If this was Grand Master’s room, how did the boys live? “Vicious!” the Squire said. Two big chairs, a table, a shelf of books, a grate so clean that it was hard to believe any fire had ever burned there-no prison cell could be grimmer. The inside was even bleaker: bare walls, plank floor, wooden ceiling a cold wind sighing in one unglazed, barred window and out another. The boy had expected the famous Ironhall to look like a castle, but it was just a cluster of buildings all alone on barren Starkmoor, black stone walls and black slate roofs.
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He had never seen the Squire be so most-wondrous polite to anyone before, fawning at Grand Master the way the goose wife did to him. While the two men discussed him, he stood in silence, clutching his cap in both hands. There was a ferocity in his gaze that the boy had never seen before in any man’s so he forced himself not to flinch when those terrible gray eyes turned on him, meeting the stare as impassively as he could, determined not to show any sign of the tumult in his belly. Rand Master looked even older than the Squire, but he had a hard trimness that age had not softened, as if he would still be deadly with that sword he wore. This book is dedicated with all my love to my grandson Brendan Andrew Press in the hope that one day he will find pleasure in itĮpilogue About the Author Praise Other Books by Dave Duncan Cover Copyright About the Publisher The Gilded Chain A TALE OF THE KING’S BLADES