Read "Swords Reluctant" by Max Pemberton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
There were two beds in the room, and one was occupied already by Louis de Paleologue, who lay in a heavy stupor, but was not properly asleep. Faber had slept in such rooms before -- in the old wild days when he had travelled in Western America to sell revolvers to a Christian people, who were set upon shooting other Christians. This room impressed chiefly by its omnipresent suggestions of profound filthiness. He feared to touch anything in it -- the chairs, the walls, the very coverlet on the bed. His own rugs were his armament. He wrapped himself in them from head to foot, and fell asleep at last, still wondering in his dreams why, in God's name, he had come to Ranovica.
When he awoke, it was at a touch of the hand of his valet Frank. He felt heavy and drowsy, and knew that he had missed a good night's rest -- indispensable to men whose brains are dominant. It was already light, and the curtains were drawn back from the window. He sat up to listen and became aware of a strange hubbub in the street without.