"Anne Bishop - Black Jewels 00 - The Invisible Ring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bishop Anne)

Obedience? You that dangerous?"
"I guess so."
"As dangerous as the Sadist?"
Jared started to say something reassuring, but there was no fear in the
boy's face, just a held-breath excitement. Aristos had good reason to fear
Daemon Sadi, but not young half-Blood boys. So he said solemnly, "He taught
me everything I know."
Tomas looked at him for a long minute, his mouth silently forming the word,
"oh," and Jared realized he couldn't have presented better credentials to
reassure the boy he was a "safe" male. That grin that seemed to be Tomas's
natural expression flashed again. "You'll be wanting a bath. We've got hot
water and everything."
As Jared watched the boy dart around the room preparing a bath for him, the
full import of their surroundings finally hit him. He wandered over to the
tub that was already half-full of steaming water. "Why are we in the guest
servants' quarters?"
" 'Cause the Lady took one look at the slave quarters and threw a polite icy
fit."
Jared scratched the back of his head. Hell's fire, he was looking forward to
getting clean. "How does one throw a polite icy fit?"
Tomas tugged on his earlobe and scrunched up his face. "Well, like the Lady
did, I guess."
That told him a lot.
Tomas turned off the water. "In you go," he said, waving the wash sponge at
Jared.
"Yes, Tomas," Jared said meekly. Tomas hesitated, as if wanting to be sure
that the adult male he was ordering around really was teasing him. Then he
grinned and dropped the wash sponge into the water. Jared settled into the
tub, closed his eyes, and groaned in pleasure. After soaking for a couple of
minutes, he opened one eye and looked at the boy kneeling beside the tub.
"So what did she do?"
"Well, the innkeeper was pleased enough at first to have a Queen staying at
his place, even if it was the Gray Lady. He told her his servants would get
her slaves settled into quarters, but she insisted on seeing them before
she'd go to her own room. So he showed her the slave quarters and she said,
no, they wouldn't do."
"Were they that bad?" Jared asked. Pleasure slaves were usually quartered
together in a comfortable "stable" or in tiny rooms adjoining the main
bedchambers so they'd be close by to indulge their Ladies' whims. Since they
were also kept fairly isolated from everyone except the court and each
other, he really didn't know what was considered normal slave quarters.
Tomas shrugged. "Looked like any other as far as I could tell, although the
privy holes did stink something fierce. But the Lady said she wasn't going
to have half of us coming down sick with a chill or worse by trying to sleep
with no blankets and nothing but bars and broken shutters over the windows.
Now, anybody could have told her you don't seal up slave quarters tight
'cause breathing the stink would make us sicker than fresh cold air, but the
innkeeper just eyed Thera and Polli and told the Lady if she just eased the
Rings a bit, the males would keep the females warm enough, and with their
blood heated like that, they wouldn't even notice the cold.