"Frankowski, Leo - Stargard 3 - The Radiant Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

“That much is obvious, once you’ve explained it. But you've been given a gift and I've taken it from you.”

“I said I was happy. Just try not to get me in trouble, okay?”

“Rest assured of that. But I don’t think my trouble or expenses will be large. I need only write a few dozen letters. It will cost me nothing to send them since every landowner in the county, or at least their men, comes by here monthly to deliver food for your city at Three Walls.”

“What? I thought that you were providing our food.”

“I am. You asked me to keep you supplied and we agreed on prices. Surely you don’t think that the hundred farmers I have here could feed the almost thousand folk you have in your valley! I mentioned your needs and your prices to my fellow noblemen, and they have delivered their surplus grains here, for pickup by your people.”

“I have paid the others precisely what I have charged you, so I have made no immoral profit. I have charged them reasonable rates for fodder for their pack animals and storage in my barns, but surely you can’t complain about that.”

I was surprised, but I didn’t have a legitimate bitch. I was getting what I had agreed on.

“No, no, Sir Miesko, I have no complaint. I simply had never thought it out. I owe you thanks for supplying my needs without bothering me with details. I hope this will be a precedent for the Great Hunt.”

While we were talking, the party went on around us. Sir Miesko’s wife, Lady Richeza, is the most gracious woman imaginable. Warm and caring, she was working my awkward subordinates into the conversation. By the time I was back into it, they were all talking boisterously about recent events. Soon she summoned her musicians and we were all dancing.

I noticed that little Piotr Kulcyznski asked Krystyana to dance a waltz, and she turned him down. He soon went outside, and Lady Richeza followed. As things were breaking up, she came to me. “That poor boy truly loves Krystyana.”

“I know. It hurts me to see his pain. But she won’t even look at him! That little kid is brilliant! With a proper education he'd be a Nobel prize winner.”

“And what is that?”

“Where I come from, there is a yearly set of prizes given to those who are judged to have made the greatest contributions to an understanding of the world around us, and the greatest contributions to literature, medicine, and peace. To win one of these is a greater honor than to, say, be the chief administrator of the United Nations. It also pays well. With training, I think Piotr could win the prize in mathematics.”

“Yours must be a wondrous land.”

“There is much good about it, but also much bad. This land has much to be said for it.”

“Yet you came here.”

“It wasn’t exactly voluntary. Still, I can't say that I regret it. I think I've found a home here.”

“A home with Krystyana?”

“No. Please understand that I like Krystyana. She’s a fine girl, an intelligent girl and competent at whatever she sets her mind to. And-I hope you aren't offended by my saying this-she's a wonderful bed partner. But, dammit, she's fifteen and I'm thirty-one! I've had seventeen years of formal schooling and she's had about three months! There's too big a gap between us to consider marriage. Marriage should be a thing between equals. Krystyana and Piotr and I would all be better off if they would get together.”

“Do they know your feelings about this?”

“I think so. I’ve tried to be obvious about it.”

“But you haven’t actually talked with them about it,” she said.

“No, I guess I haven’t. Sometimes it's hard…”

“Would you object if I talked to them?”

“Object? I’d be forever grateful!”