CHAPTER EIGHT
Altfor looked around with every step, certain that there would be soldiers of the enemy looking for him, sure that he was being hunted in the same way that he and his friends might have hunted a deer or a fox.
“Friends,” Altfor spat. He had no friends here. He had no one. The courtiers who had professed their friendship in the past had been quick to side with his uncle when he’d taken the dukedom, and had either died at his side or run.
That Altfor had run too was a minor point. His life was worth preserving.
The question was how to do that. Already, he’d taken one step toward it, dressing in colors stolen from one of Royce’s soldiers so that he could move unmolested by that army. Now that he was further south, he tore away the tabard and the insignia, knowing that they w
