"Dave Duncan - A Man of His Word 4 - Emperor And Clown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

Those spectator benches went all the way around, except where the four aisles were, of course, but they still left lots of room in the middle. And in


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 Emperor And Clown

the center of that big round floor were the two round steps with Grandfather's throne on top. Today was a north day; northern cities paying homage,
the Opal Throne facing north. Halfway between Shandie and the senators, the White Throne stood on a single step. That place belonged to the
warden of the north, but it was empty. Shandie had never seen a warden. Not many people had. And nobody ever wanted even to talk about them,
even Grandfather, but he at least wasn't scared of them. He was imperor, so he could summon the wardens.


One day I will be imperor and use Emine's buckler to summon the wardens.


Even before Grandfather got old, he had not been frightened of the witch and the warlocks. They couldn't touch him, he'd said; that was in the
Protocol.


No one could use magic on Shandie, either, because he was family. Not that being heir apparent was much comfort when he was bent over
Ythbane's writing table with his pants down. Any magic would be better than that.


The poor woman came to an end at last; eyes turned toward the throne; Shandie stopped breathing again. The pins and needles in his left arm were
making his eyes water. If he wriggled his fingers just a little, very slowly, surely no one would notice and tell Ythbane he'd been fidgeting?


Ythbane spoke for Grandfather again; -the woman scrabbled away; another delegate came forward to kneel.


Tomorrow would be East's turn-eastern cities bringing greetings, Grandfather seated facing east, toward the Gold Throne. Moms and Shandie, too.
The senators would have the eastern seats, facing west. He wondered how the senators chose who came on which day, because that wasn't the whole
Senate sitting there.


Not long to go now.


It was awfully hard to keep his knees from shaking, and they did hurt. He tried to imagine the witch of the north suddenly appearing over there on
her White Throne, although it wasn't really white, being carved out of ivory. Bright Water was a goblin, and hundreds of years old. He'd heard
people muttering that maybe she'd set the goblins on the Pondague legionaries, but he knew that only East would use magic on Grandfather's army.
What was the word? He'd seen it in his history book. Pre-roga-tive! Prerogative (q.v.), whatever (q.v.) meant. Bright Water's prerogative was
Nordland raiders, but it was silly of the Protocol to put a goblin woman in charge of jotunn sailors. South's was dragons and West's was weather.


If Bright Water ever did appear on her throne, then likely all the warlocks would appear, as well, each on his own throne-Olybino and Zinixo and
Lith'rian. An imp, a dwarf, and an elf. That was silly, too. The Protocol should have made all the wardens imps, to protect the Impire properly.