"Frankowski,.Leo.-.Conrad.Starguard.4.-.Flying.Warlord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

man and I was the murderer.

So I bent my longbow and caught the bastard in the throat as he
ran along the shore. Nailed him square to a tree, I did, and he stuck
there, wiggling some.

Sir Conrad, he had his own funny knife out, that one that bends in
the middle, but I wouldn't let him finish the thief. After all, it was me
they was trying to rob and kill, so the honors was mine. Anyway,
that was a good arrow, and I didn't want the fletching messed up. I
cut the thief's throat and saved my arrow, and I guess Sir Conrad,
he was a little mad because he wouldn't help me slide the three
bodies into the river current to get rid of them. He even threatened
to call out the guard!

But I got him calmed down just fine and he went back to the inn
where he was staying at. That was the second time he saved me,
because if them thieves had of caught me asleep, I'd be a dead
man, and my cargo gone besides.

Well, I got me a good price for my cargo of grain and spent the
winter in Cracow with a widow of my acquaintance.

The next summer a friar brought me this letter. He was the same
kid what used to be a Goliard poet and worked for me the last fall.
He read it to me, and it was from Sir Conrad and it had Count
Lambert's seal on it. They wanted me to come to Okoitz and teach
the peasants there how to shoot the longbow. I was sort of
tempted because I'd heard of beautiful things about Okoitz. They
said that Count Lambert had all the peasant girls trained to jump
into the bed of any knight that wanted them, and if Sir Conrad could
qualify for them privileges, then why not me as well? At least I
could dicker for it, if they really wanted me that bad, and they must
have, since they wrote that letter on real calfskin vellum. Not that I
was about to give up my boat and the Vistula, you know, but it
might make a fine way to spend a winter.

But just then I had a contract to deliver a load of iron bars to Turon,
and two other ones to buy grain on the upper Dunajec and sell it in
Cracow. I didn't have the time to find someone who could write me
a letter to Sir Conrad, so I told the friar, him what brought me the
letter, that I'd reply to Sir Conrad when I got back, in a few weeks,
like.

That trip went just fine until I was heading down the Dunajec again.
The water was high, so I was working the boat alone, and I saw a
buck at the water's edge in the same place where I'd bagged two
other ones before, where a game trail comes down to the water. I
was out of meat, so I shot that buck square in the head and pulled
for shore to get it aboard before I got caught poaching.