"Dave Duncan - Tales of King's Blades 6 - Paragon Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

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The three “Tales of the King’s Blades” formed a set, although possibly not a true series because they
were not sequential. The present book is independent of them and complete in itself. It recounts some
curious events that occurred about a dozen years later, during the reign of King Athelgar.

Thousands of swords hang overhead in the great hall, each one a memorial to the Blade who bore it. For
his own hand and style it was crafted, into his heart it was plunged in the ritual that bound him, and its
touch on his shoulder ultimately released him when the King dubbed him knight. After his death it was
brought back to Ironhall, to hang forever with its sisters in the place where it was made. Swords of all
types and styles hang there, as fashions have changed through the centuries, but each hilt bears a shining
yellow gem as its pommel—with one exception. On one sword alone the cat’s-eye stone has been
replaced with a plain white pebble.




I

At Gossips’ Corner

•1•

“Isabelle!” Mistress Snider screeched. “Are you deaf?”

Isabelle was not deaf, but she would have had good cause to be, working in this kitchen. On one side of
her Nel was chopping up salt pork with a hatchet, on the other Ed pounded dried fish with a mallet—it
took hours of pounding and soaking to make it even close to edible. At her back, Lackwit was
powdering salt just as loudly. Lids danced and clattered on boiling pots, the pump handle squeaked,
drudges were rattling sea coal into the great brick ovens and raking out ashes. The door, left open to
admit cool air and flies, led to the stable yard where the farrier was shoeing a horse. Deaf? Not at all.

“And what’re you doing with all that cinnamon?” The old harpy waxed louder and shriller. Mistress
Snider was tall and stooped, tapering from grotesquely wide hips up to a small, mean face shriveled
around a beak nose.

“I am making a dipping sauce as you told me to!” Isabelle


2Dave Duncan

shouted back. “Cameline sauce, with ginger and raisins and nuts, with cinnamon and pepper, but how
you expect me to do it with no cloves, no cardamon—”

“Not so much cinnamon! You think we’re made of money here? Stale bread and vinegar, that’s what
makes a sauce, girl. Use up some of those herbs before they rot completely. A man wants you! A
gentlemanis asking for your husband.” The old horror canted her head to peer at Isabelle with one glittery