"Dave Duncan - Tales of King's Blades 3 - Sky of Swords" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

"So why did you?" Dog growled.
The Queen sniffled in very unregal fashion.
"I was being kind! Neville had done nothing
wrong. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Dominic
tried to tell me and I shouted at him! I
didn't see that Neville had inherited his father's
claim and would be just as dangerous or even worse,
because he was born in wedlock, which will carry weight
with the snootier nobles. Even if he would have a
baton sinister on his arms, plenty of them do.
He can turn Granville into a martyour."
"He swore allegiance?"
"He can always claim he did it under
duress."
"I'll kill him for you. Where is he?"
"We don't know! I sent him to Constable
Valdor, who says he never showed up--but he
may be lying, playing on both teams. Grand
Inquisitor says the Dark Chamber has a
sniffer spell it could use to track him if we
had a suitable key--meaning something closely
identified with him, that he'd owned for a long time.
Which we don't. He's almost certainly far away
by now. ... Oh, Dog, I feel such a
fool!"
Her father would never have made that mistake.
Ambrose would have let Neville molder in a
dungeon for years, just in case. If she ever
did get to sleep tonight she was going to have nightmares
of her own head on a spike alongside
Granville's.

Nobody had been so disrespectful as to call
the Queen an idiot, but the Duke and Chancellor
together then took over the proceedings and
abandoned any pretense of being mere advisors.
They arranged everyone in chairs around the table and
kept the meeting going until sundown.
The Council agreed that nothing could be done about
Neville unless and until he showed up, and
nothing should be done about the holdout garrisons at
present. The Council summoned Parliament for the
fifth day of Tenthmoon. The Council decided
it needed more members and discussed names; Malinda
humbly agreed to appoint the half dozen
selected. The Council even found some money,
or Master Kinwinkle did, when he pointed out that
a tax known as "relief" must be paid whenever a
vassal of the crown died. The Treasury and the
College of Heralds, he said, had been working