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

"What? No. None of us have, except for Sir Stefan and the wenches. Looking forward to it, but all I've
told you is hearsay. Oh, yes. Besides all else, Conrad's a surgeon, a mathematician, and a great chess
player. He beat Count Lambert for the first two dozen games they played and no one but he has beaten
Lambert since. Ah. I've talked until my food got cold. You, girl! Throw this back into the pot and bring
me more that's goodly hot."

"Well, I know that foul warlock right well," Sir Stefan said. "Too well! I've served here since Christmas,
almost every night from dusk to dawn without relief and I know the bastard for what he is."

"Dusk to dawn?" I said. "Long hours! Weren't you to serve with Sir Miesko?"

"Sir Miesko took Conrad's place in the service of a merchant, to do an errand for Count Lambert. Then
Conrad bewitched Lambert with dreams of wealth and fame and spent his days building the warlock's
gear that you see in the hall and bailey. I was forced to stand guard seven nights a week and they were
long cold nights!"

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Sir Bodan said, "I've already shown that there's no witchcraft in those looms."

"No witchcraft? Do you realize that Conrad used this very table we're now eating from and drenched it
with human blood!"

"I was there," Annastashia said quietly. "One of the men from the village was hurt while cutting down
trees. His foot was all smashed. Sir Conrad had to cut it off and sew him up to save him."

"And that peasant was dead within a month! The witch's rite didn't help much!" Stefan shouted.

"But, Sir Conrad was trying..."

"Shut up, wench!"

We were quiet for a bit, then Annastashia said softly, "I remember Sir Conrad at the funeral of a peasant
child. He cried."

Chapter Two

Two weeks slid pleasantly by. The weather was lovely; supplies of food and drink seemed inexhaustible;
my fellow knights were excellent comrades; and the ladies, ah the ladies. I'd sampled them all by that
point, but in the end I found that the best was at the beginning. I spent most of my nights with
Annastashia. Well, my evenings at least, the graveyard shift being what it was.

Often Annastashia would come to me when I was on duty; sometimes we would talk and sometimes we
simply held hands and watched the stars wheel by. I was quite taken by her, although of course nothing
could come of it. For all her absurd status as a "lady in-waiting," she was a peasant and I was a knight
and my parents were very... traditional in their outlook. Yet... yet I tried not to think about my departure