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

Eventually Count Lambert returned, and with almost royal company, for with him rode his liege lord,
Duke Henryk the Bearded, and that lord's son, young Prince Henryk, called the Pious. I was not privy to
their conversations, but they stayed closeted with Sir Conrad for much of the afternoon.

The day after, there was to be a hunt and Count Lambert invited me to go. I am famed for my ability as a
huntsman and perhaps Lambert had heard of this. Perhaps also he did not know that I stood daily guard
from matins to prime, but when your father's liege lord invites you to hunt with his liege lord, you go!

So after duty, I went hunting rather than to bed. It was a good hunt and as Fortuna would have it, Sir
Conrad took first blood on a winset. Being inept with the lance, he botched the job, only wounding the
bison on the shoulder. Then he lost its trail entirely and even lost himself. In the end, I finished the

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animal and Count Lambert retrieved our crestfallen Sir Conrad.

I missed the feast that night, falling asleep in bed still in my armor, but I was up before matins and at my
post at the proper time.

But within an hour, Sir Bodan relieved me and instructed me to attend Duke Henryk in his chamber.

I had never before had conversation with so high a personage and I was nervous as I knocked on his
door.

"Come in, boy. Sit down and share a cup of wine with me." The duke was an ancient man, fully seventy
years old. His face was lined and cracked and sunburned, his thick white hair brushed his wide shoulders
and his huge white beard hung to below his finely tooled swordbelt. He was dressed all in purple velvet,
heavily embroidered with fine gold wire.

Yet there was nothing foppish or feeble about him. His bearing was robust, his arms still powerful and
his eyes... his eyes knew all things.

"Thank you, your grace." I made a full Slavic bow to him, on my knees with my forehead to the floor.

"Up! Up child! No need for that nonsense when we're alone. I told you to sit."

I sat and he filled a huge golden wine cup from a silver pitcher. He drank deeply and handed the cup to
me took a pull as great as his and set the cup down empty.

"Good! You drink as well as your father. If you're half the man he is, I'll expect great things from you."
He refilled the cup.

"I try, your grace."

"You try right well. I know it's a hard thing to live up to, being the son of a great father. I remember him
at the Battle of Fulnek. The Moravians had us outnumbered two to one, but Sir Jan led a charge that
broke their line in half. It seems like yesterday... He took their first knight with his lance, splitting shield,
armor, and breast bone. He rode on with the Moravian's shield still threaded on his lance and broke that
lance on a second knight moments later, bashing him from the saddle to be trampled beneath our Polish