Inheritance

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This book is dedicated with much love to my nephews and nieces—Alice, Amy, Andrew, Ben, Bennett, Billy, Caleb, Christopher, Daniel, James, Jane, Kea, Kylie, Lachlan, Louise, Nate, Phillip, Rebecca, Tara and Thomas.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Alison Tokley, Sean Williams, Jack Dann and Sara Douglass for all their advice and support during the writing of this book. I would also like to thank the wonderful work done on my behalf by Stephanie Smith, Julia Stiles, Garth Nix, Russ Galen, Betsy Wollheim and Debra Euler.

Kingdoms are but cares,

State is devoid of stay, Riches are ready snares,

And hasten to decay.

Pleasure is a privy prick

Which vice doth still provoke;

Pomp, imprompt; and fame, a flame; Power, a smouldering smoke.

Who meanth to remove the rock

Owt of the slimy mud, Shall mire himself, and hardly scape

The swelling of the flood.

—King Henry VI of England (1421-1471)

Chapter 1

Ager, still not forty, crippled by war and itinerant by nature, had sat down for a quiet drink in the visitor’s room in the Lost Sailor Tavern. He fidgeted in his seat, trying to ease the pain in his crookback but without avail; the ax blow that had cut tendons and bone all those years ago had been too deep to ever fully repair. He took a sip of his drink, a strange, sweet, and warm brew that tickled all the way down his gullet, and took in his surroundings.

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