"Raymond E. Feist - Riftwar Legends - Murder In LaMut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

Kethol launched himself through into the mud-room and through the mud-room
to the entryway, brushing aside the thick sheets of canvas hung up to keep the
chill air out of the tavern. And stopped in his tracks.

They were waiting for him outside: a squad of regulars, led by a mounted
corporal whose massive dark horse pranced nervously on the hard-packed snow,
pawing at it with the strange clawed horseshoes that Kethol hadn't seen
anywhere except in LaMut. A lance pointed in his direction.

'You'd be Kethol, the mercenary,' came a voice out of the darkness.

There was a sharp point on the lance, and no point in denying it. If there
was a problem, he would have to talk his way out of it now - or, more likely,
think, talk, or fight his way out of it later.

'Yes,' he said, his hands spread in a question. 'Is there some problem?'
'Not for me. The Swordmaster wants to see you.' 'Me?' 'You. All three of you.'

He didn't have to ask what the corporal meant by 'all three of you'.
'So let's be on our way,' the corporal said. Kethol shrugged.

With the stolen coins warm in his hidden pocket, he had nothing else that he
needed to be doing, including dying in the street. At the moment.

It was a dark and stormy night, and if there was such a thing as a barn that
wasn't draughty, Pirojil had never seen one, so he wasn't surprised at the
bitter cold ripping through the place as he rolled another bale of hay down
from the loft, letting it fall onto the hard-packed earth below.

The horses were used to the thunk made by the bale hitting the floor,
although the big bay gelding that was reserved for the use of the Horsemaster
himself nickered and clomped in his stall.

Pirojil didn't have any particular objection to doing his share of tending
the horses - all of the stableboys had been pressed into service as message
runners during the last-but-one battle, and all of them had been cut down
either by Tsurani or Bugs - but he didn't particularly care to be doing it
in a barn that was so cold and draughty that the sweat on his nose kept
freezing.

It was a trade-off, as most things in life were. The less you complained
about having to muck out a few stalls, the more likely it was that your name
was not going to come to the top of the captain's mental list when he needed
to send a patrol out to see if there really were Tsurani lying in ambush in
the forest ahead. And if you could improve the job with more than a few swigs
from a bottle of cheap Tyr-Sog wine that the late sergeant - may Tith-Onaka,
god of soldiers, clasp him to his hairy, hoary breast! - didn't have any
use for any more, well, then what was the harm? It was lousy work, but it was
easy.