Gold Throne in Shadow Read Online Free Page B

sadly.
    â€œStephram,” Christopher asked, “Why? Tell me why?”
    â€œBecause I did not make the rope long enough, so I strangled instead of snapping my neck. Hence the twitching.” The ghost of the corpse spoke with unrelieved spite.
    Christopher was only allowed five questions, and the witness was definitely hostile.
    â€œI meant, why did you kill yourself. Tell me what drove you to suicide.”
    â€œI didn’t drive, I walked,” said the ghost. The spell compelled it to a more stringent answer. “Shame, Pater, shame at my cowardice.”
    Christopher had been a Pater while Stephram knew him, and the title was surprisingly painful, evoking the memories they had shared as first-rank priests in an army of farm boys.
    â€œYou were only following orders,” he objected. “There was no shame.”
    â€œIt is fruitless to argue,” chided Faren.
    The ghost answered anyway. “I abandoned a Brother in the field, at the behest of a mere lord. If I had stayed, I would have been a hero; instead, I was craven and disloyal, a figure of pity. I blamed Nordland, of course, yet I also blamed you, for the mere crime of surviving.”
    â€œBut how does this equate to you killing yourself?” Christopher asked. “You knew I would forgive you.”
    â€œI did not want forgiveness, I wanted revenge. And now I have it.” The leer aimed for grisly triumph. On the face of a dead man it only achieved the pathetic.
    â€œRevenge? How?”
    The ghost laughed, cruelly similar to Stephram at the dinner table telling a joke. “My death is punishment on you both. Nordland fled a coward, though no one dares to say it to his face. But my corpse cannot be denied, and many will say that Nordland should have joined me here on the tree, purely out of shame. I had the courage to name him craven by my deed.
    â€œAnd you, Brother, I have also struck from beyond the grave. Now Nordland can never forgive you. My suicide will be a lasting chain that will bind his anger and guilt. I cannot be revived, so I cannot be forced to recant or induced to forgive. I stand as a bar between you and the Duke, and he must hate you for as long as I am dead. As will I.”
    The spell was done, the questions exhausted, and so was Christopher. The mist evaporated into the daylight, and the tree stood innocent and silent once again.
    â€œSuicides are ever vainglorious,” Faren grumbled.
    â€œWhy can’t he be revived?” Christopher asked, struggling against his emotional fatigue and trying to create some room for denial. “I committed suicide, and you brought me back.”
    â€œYou did not. You struck against your enemies through your act. Bringing you back let you continue your fight. Stephram can only lose his battle if he returns. And because he cannot form new desires, he cannot give up his wicked goal. Those on the other side do not change. Remember this,” Faren admonished, “before you send anyone else there.”
    Christopher blushed in terrible shame. He’d shot a man, on the march home, for not walking. He had been irrational after two days of grueling travel and inadequate food and shelter. That hardly served as an excuse. He hadn’t lost any more men to immobility. That didn’t seem exculpatory, either.
    Faren took pity on him. “The lad returned. He was in the act of returning home at the time, anyway, so the risk was low. The two you lost were no fault of yours. And yes, I know you dared not ask, but Karl lives also.” Karl the two-time veteran was the real leader of the army, a young man of such gratuitous courage that it made Christopher’s stomach ache. The release of tension made him faint-headed. He could carry on without Stephram, but without Karl he would have been utterly lost.
    Climbing on his magnificent warhorse, the stalwart Royal, who had carried the dead on that march instead of Christopher, he reflected that he had