"Leo Frankowski - Stargard 2 - High-Tech Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

I stifled a giggle. "A mare?"

"A mare. Furthermore, they tell as many stories about the horse as they do of the rider. She refuses to be
shod and goes without horseshoes, yet she gallops over rocks without splaying her hoofs. She doesn't
soil her stall, but removes the bar and goes out in the bailey like a house-broken dog. Then she returns to
her stall, and replaces the bar!"

"Incredible!"

"She is fully war-trained and Conrad claims that two of his kills were made by her alone. Yet she has no
objection to wearing a horse collar and working with the peasants. And under her influence, Count
Lambert's best stallion hauled logs last winter, two warhorses guided by a single little peasant girl. The
commoners here claim the mare is so intelligent that she can talk!"

"What?"

"Oh, it's just a matter of shaking and nodding her head. Yet she does it in response to questions; myself,
I think it just a carnival trick. "

"But what of the man himself? Who are his people?"

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"That's another mystery. It seems that some priest laid a geise on him, that he may not tell of his origins.
Some say that he is a socialist, though it is not clear just what that means. It might refer to his country,
his military order, or his religious sect. Myself, I think it must be a religious sect, for he is uncommonly
gentle with children, peasants, and other animals."

"All we really know is that he came out of the east in the company of a merchant, Boris Novacek."

"Ah. I know the man."

"Then you know that Boris is no fool and that he wouldn't lie unless there was a profit in it."

"True."

"Well, Boris claims he took this true belted knight out of a monastery in Cracow, where he was engaged
in writing books."

"A knight who can read and write? That's unmanly!"

"There's nothing unmanly about him, though he claims to have spent seventeen years as a student in
schools."

"Indeed. How old is this Conrad?" The beef stew was excellent.

"He claims to be thirty, but he looks no older than you and there's not a scar on his body. Then there is