"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 01 - Sorcery Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

enclosure, Fabel indicating each horse's finest points, Tanto nodding discerningly, as if
riveted by every word. Saro sighed. He kicked at the ground. Truly life could be mightily
unfair. Surely any idiot could see that Tanto had no interest in the animals at all, that as
far as he was concerned they were just walking bags of cantari, ready to be exchanged
into nice fat dowry payments. It was ironic, Saro thought, tracing a pattern with his foot,
that his brother had not the wit to make the rest of the metaphorical leap. For if the
horses were there to be traded for money, how different was Tanto's own position?
Endowed with sufficient funds, and enhanced by his status at the Allfair's contests,
wouldn't he then also be auctioned to the highest bidder, married off into the family of the
man who could offer the Vingo family the best deal, as far as social and political
advancement were concerned?
For a moment, Saro was the recipient of a delightful vision: his brother, naked in the
selling ring, hair and muscles polished with linseed oil, eyes rolling in fear; paraded around
on a lunge rein with the rest of the marriageable lads. The dealer with his silver baton
pointing out Tanto's fine pectorals, the proud carriage of his head, the curve of his neck,
the neat turn of his calves and fetlock; flicking him lightly across the buttocks with the
whip to show off his well-disciplined gait, his graceful trot; then running the baton down
his flanks and lifting into view Tanto's private parts so that the audience might remark
(disparagingly) upon the virility and length of his—
"Saro!"
Saro's head shot up so fast he cricked his neck. Favio Vingo had joined his brother and
Tanto and was even now bearing down upon his second son. Thank Falla his people were
not mind readers, Saro thought wildly. If they were, it would not be Tanto on the
receiving end of a whip.
"Hello, father."
Favio Vingo was a short man, though compactly muscled. He hid the shame of his
encroaching baldness today under a fabulously-patterned silk head wrap, fastened with a
vast emerald on a pin. "I have something to show you, Saro. Come with me." His father
beamed: clearly, Saro thought uncharitably, the effects of the araque must still be with
him, that he should be so magnanimous toward one he so despised.
Garnering his most obliging and agreeable expression, Saro took his father's proffered
arm and fell into step with him.
"What is it, father, that you wish to show me?"
"Words would not do justice to the experience. You must see it for yourself and form
your own responses. I remember witnessing a similar scene on my first visit to the
Allfair—" he paused. "By Falla! Over twenty-five years ago, now: can you believe it?
Twenty-five years. Twenty-five visits to the Moonfell Plain, by the Lady! And still the
memory of that first time as clear as if it were yesterday. Such excitement, eh, Fabel?"
Fabel Vingo looked over his shoulder at them. "Ah, yes. I remember my first time at
the Fair— Would have been a few years after you, though, brother." He winked and then
turned back to continue his conversation with Tanto. As if unconsciously, he ran a hand
through his own thick cap of hair.
Favio grimaced. "It wasn't just his first time at the Allfair, either," he said in a voice too
loud to be destined for Saro's ears alone, but there came no response from his brother.
They made their way past the rest of the livestock stalls and the temporary booths for
the herdsmen and servants, and soon found themselves out on unoccupied ground. The
sun, coming to its fullest point now, beat down on the volcanic ash so that in the miasma of
heat thus produced, it seemed that the eastern mountains rose off the plain in great,
rippling waves, like a tide. The sky overhead, early clouds now burned away to nothing,
was the deep, unflawed blue of a Jetra bowl.