"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 2 - Witches of Wenshar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

checkerwork of the floor as if on the sea. Like shaggy islands, the white
pelts of mountain sheep alternated with black bearskins and scattered
rugs of deep-desert work, bright, primitive mosaics of red and blue. It
was a comfortable room for a King who'd worked in the mines as a
boy.
"Kaletha tells me that tourniquet of yours probably kept me from
being laid up worse than I am. Seems I have to thank you twice."
Sun Wolf shrugged dismissively. "I'd already gone to the trouble of
saving your hide; be a pity to have wasted my time, after all." He
slouched back in his chair, relaxed but watchful. Under his booming
heartiness, the King was on edge; the wine, which Sun Wolf never
touched at this hour of the morning, and the tray of white rolls, butter,
honey, ham, and dates, which a noiseless servant now brought in,
implied more than a man simply thanking another for keeping robbers
from making pemmican of him. The King wanted something.
"That's what I like!" Osgard laughed. "A man who does what he
has to without a lot of bother and fuss-a fighter, a man of his hands!"
He threw a glance after the departing servant and refilled his wine cup.
"They say you were the best mercenary in the West-at least you
commanded the highest prices, back when we were fighting old
Shilmarne and her troops. But by the Three, you delivered the goods!
What are you doing rag-tagging it like a tinker through the Middle
Kingdoms, without the price of a roof over your head? You lose your
troop?"
"I gave it up."
"Because of that?" Osgard gestured with his wine cup to the
leather eye-patch.
The Wolf shook his head easily. "Just say I gambled high stakes
with the gods."
"And lost?"
He touched the patch, the fire-seared socket beneath. "And won."
Osgard regarded him shrewdly for a moment, hearing in his
shattered voice the echo of all those reasons and knowing that it was all
of them that he would hear. He was silent for a moment, his big,
work-knotted hands fidgeting with the stem of the goblet. His eyes
shifted away, then back. Here it comes, the Wolf thought. Osgard
said, "I want to hire you to teach my son."
Sun Wolf considered this for a moment in silence. It was the first
he'd heard of the boy, for only the King's daughter had come flying to
her father's side last night. The way word went around a small
community like the fortress, there was no way the boy could not have
heard. But he only asked, "How old is he?"
"Nine." The man's voice turned flinty. "Nanciormis has started him
on sword and horses, but the boy's a sniveler. He'd rather run and hide
than face his lessons like a man. His uncle has his own duties and can't
go after him as he should. It's time the boy learned to be a man."
The tone of hard challenge made Sun Wolf remember his own
father. Mistaking his silence, Osgard went on, "I'll make it worth your
while, Captain. He's the Heir of Wenshar-the first born Heir in a
hundred and fifty years, since the days when the Ancient House of