Blood Of Elves Read Online Free Page B

And which king, which kingdom, in your opinion, should subordinate the others? In whose hands would you like to see the sceptre and knout?’
     
    ‘What do I care?’ replied Skaggs with a shrug. ‘That’s a human affair. Whoever you chose to be king wouldn’t be a dwarf anyway.’
    ‘Or an elf, or even half-elf,’ added the tall representative of the Elder Race, his arm still wrapped around the toque-wearing beauty. ‘You even consider quarter-elves inferior—’
    ‘That’s where it stings,’ laughed Vilibert. ‘You’re blowing the same horn as Nilfgaard because Nilfgaard is also shouting about equality, promising you a return to the old order as soon as we’ve been conquered and they’ve scythed us off these lands. That’s the sort of unity, the sort of equality you’re dreaming of, the sort you’re talking about and trumpeting! Nilfgaard pays you gold to do it! And it’s hardly surprising you love each other so much, the Nilfgaardians being an elven race—’
    Nonsense,’ the elf said coldly. ‘You talk rubbish, sir knight. You’re clearly blinded by racism. The Nilfgaardians are human, just like you.’
    ‘That’s an outright lie! They’re descended from the Black Seidhe and everyone knows it! Elven blood flows through their veins! The blood of elves!’
    ‘And what flows through yours?’ The elf smiled derisively. ‘We’ve been combining our blood for generations, for centuries, your race and mine, and doing so quite successfully – fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t know. You started persecuting mixed relationships less than a quarter of a century ago and, incidentally, not very successfully. So show me a human now who hasn’t a dash of Seidhe Ichaer, the blood of the Elder Race.’
    Vilibert visibly turned red. Vera Loewenhaupt also flushed. Wizard Radcliffe bowed his head and coughed. And, most interestingly, the beautiful elf in the ermine toque blushed too.
    ‘We are all children of Mother Earth.’ The grey-haired druid’s voice resounded in the silence. ‘We are children of Mother Nature. And though we do not respect our mother, though we often worry her and cause her pain, though we break her heart, she loves us. Loves us all. Let us remember that, we who are assembled here in this Seat of Friendship. And let us not bicker over which of us was here first: Acorn was the first to be thrown up by the waves and from Acorn sprouted the Great Bleobheris, the oldest of oaks. Standing beneath its crown, amongst its primordial roots, let us not forget our own brotherly roots, the earth from, which these roots grow. Let us remember the words of Poet Dandilion’s song—’

    ‘Exactly!’ exclaimed Vera Loewenhaupt. ‘And where is he?’
    ‘He’s fled,’ ascertained Sheldon Skaggs, gazing at the empty place under the oak. ‘Taken the money and fled without saying goodbye. Very elf-like!’
    ‘Dwarf-like!’ squealed Ironware.
    ‘Human-like,’ corrected the tall elf, and the beauty in the toque rested her head against his shoulder.
    ‘Hey, minstrel,’ said Mama Lantieri, striding into the room without knocking, the scents of hycinths, sweat, beer and smoked bacon wafting before her. ‘You’ve got a guest. Enter, noble gentleman.’
    Dandilion smoothed his hair and sat up in the enormous carved armchair. The two girls sitting on his lap quickly jumped up, covering their charms and pulling down their disordered clothes. The modesty of harlots, thought the poet, was not at all a bad title for a ballad. He got to his feet, fastened his belt and pulled on his doublet, all the while looking at the nobleman standing at the threshold.
    ‘Indeed,’ he remarked, ‘you know how to find me anywhere, though you rarely pick an opportune moment. You’re lucky I’d not yet decided which of these two beauties I prefer. And at your prices, Lantieri, I cannot afford them both.’
    Mama Lantieri smiled in sympathy and clapped her hands. Both girls – a fair-skinned, freckled islander