"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 1 - The Ladies Of Mandrigyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

steppes. The woman put back the hood from her hair.

"Sheera Galernas?" he asked quietly.

"Captain Sun Wolf?"

He gestured her to take the other chair. She was younger than he had thought, at most twenty-five.
Her black hair curled thickly around a face that tapered from wide, delicate cheekbones to a
pointed chin. Her lips, full almost to the corners of her mouth, were sensual and dark as the lees



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of wine. Her deep-set eyes seemed wine-colored, too, their lids stained violet from sleepless
nights. She was tail for a woman and, as far as he could determine under the muffling folds of her
cloak, well set up.

For a moment neither spoke. Then she said, "You're different from what I had thought."

"I can't apologize for that." He'd put on a shirt and breeches and a brown velvet doublet. The
hair on the backs of his arms caught the light as he folded his strong, heavy hands.

THE LADIES OF MANDRIGYN U

She stirred in her chair, wary, watching him. He found himself wondering what it would be like to
bed her and if the experiment would be worth the trouble it could cost. "I have a proposition for
you," she said at last, meeting his eyes with a kind of anger, defying him to look at her face
instead of her body.

"Most ladies who come to my tent do."

Her skin deepened to clay-red along the cheekbones and her nostrils flared a little, like a horse
scenting battle. But she only said, "What would you say to ten thousand pieces of gold, to bring
your troop and do a job for me in Mandrigyn?"

He shrugged. "I'd say no."

She sat up, truly shocked. "For ten thousand gold pieces?" The sum was enormous—five thousand
would have bought the entire troop for a summer's campaign and been thought generous. He wondered
where she'd come up with it, if in fact she intended to pay him. The size of the sum inclined him
to doubt it.

"I wouldn't go against Altiokis for fifty thousand," he said calmly. "And I wouldn't tie up on a
word-of-mouth proposition with a skirt from a conquered city for a hundred, wizard or no wizard."

As he'd intended, it prodded her out of her calm. The flush in her face deepened, for she was a
woman to whom few men had ever said no. An edge of ugly rage slid into her voice. "Are you
afraid?"