"ED Greenwood - Band of Four 01 - The Kingless Land" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

long sight. He's made foes of a thousand men by declaring them outlaw. With a price on their heads
they'll have no choice but to take to the woods and raid farms for food. Much blood will smoke on
the snow, come the cold."
"I never knew Aglirta had 'thousands of warriors.'"
"Men whelmed from all over Asmarand who fought in vain to conquer the Isles of Ieirembor for
Blackgult," the old voice explained. "Now they're trickling home—to find homes and farms gone,
and friends turned against them. Aye, the wolves'll be busy this winter."
Flaeros looked across the room. Through a diamond-shaped window, he could see the darkness
of full night, hiding the river Silverflow endlessly sliding past behind tall, crowded houses.
Somewhere out there in the dark, not so far off, desperate men with drawn swords were creeping.. ..
"Why do that?" he asked suddenly. "Why turn so many battle-ready warriors into your foes? Is
this Baron Silvertree mad?"
Heads turned. With a kind of cold thrill Flaeros real-ized his words had come out a trifle more
loudly than they should have done.
The old man, however, smiled easily. "Some have claimed so, but I find it does a man better to use
the word 'cunning' instead, and act accordingly."
As their eyes met over raised goblets, he added, "If a baron began hiring armaragors without
warning, rulers up and down the Coiling would rise in alarm and do the same. All would be thrust
closer to bloodshed, all would have to spend coins in plenty—and coins are something that barons
never do seem to want to part with."
Flaeros snorted. As if other folk liked to see coins roll away from them, either. ..
"Yet consider," the old man went on, "how it seems if you loudly trumpet the perils outlying folk
suffer from a few raiders and make a show of the diligence with which you rush to defend them. And
lo—some of these foes are renegade wizards; your patrols suffer under dark spells! To keep
Silvertree safe you need fresh swords, and put out the call, urging friendly barons to do the same,
proclaiming a blood price on this dark legacy of darker Blackgult, come down on fair Aglirta like
thieves in the night. None cry out at the strength you build against a phantom foe. Those who do
come raiding taste your strength and turn to harry other bar-onies, weakening your rivals—and
hastening the day you'll reach out and snatch them down, one by one. Cunning."
Flaeros looked wonderingly out the window at the night and a single twinkling light he could
now see, and protested, "You speak of scheming that rushes lands to war and cares not for lives
shed in the doing!"
"Ah," the old man whispered over his goblet, "that's where the madness comes in."
Eyeball to eyeball young man and old stared at each other, until Flaeros asked almost
despairingly, "How is it that you know all this?"
Old lips laughed without a sound. "I am Inderos Stormharp."
Flaeros gasped, thrust his chair back as if he'd strayed too close to a hot fire, and gaped at the
old man—who raised his glass in an almost mocking salute.
Inderos Stormharp! Most famous of the master bards!
The oldest and most respected weaver of ballads in all Asmarand, the seldom-seen master of
enchanted harps who could call forth the strains of a dozen instru-ments out of empty air to dance
with his voice. The man who'd wooed the sensuous Nuesressa of Teln, only to unmask her as a
dragon using shape-shiftings to lure men as a spider catches flies. The man who'd called forth
unicorns with his singing and danced with dryads in mushroom groves to learn their secrets.
 Flaeros knew he was staring like a man brain-smit-ten and searched for something intelligent to
say. It was a doomed quest. "I-I—ahhh ...," he began.
Stormharp waved him to silence. "Gabbling is not needful, nor the fawning I find myself in
constant over-supply of," he said lightly, and then cocked his head and asked, "You looked at me
strangely when first 1 spoke to you .. . have you seen me before?"
Flaeros blinked. "Ah, no," he said truthfully, "I know I haven't. Heard of the great Stormharp,