"Huff, Tanya - Fire's Stone V1.1 Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

Darvish smiled and with much of his weight resting on Oham's thick shoulder, thankfully relieved himself.
"You're new," he said when he finished, reaching out and lightly pinching the boy's chin.
"Yes, Highness." The boy blushed and backed respectfully away with the brimming pot.
"Have you a name?"
Thick lashes lowered over velvet brown eyes. "Fadi, if it please, your Highness."
"Whether it pleases me or not. ..." And it did please him. Darvish ran an appreciative look down the slim figure and sighed; it would please him more in a couple of years when the boy was bedable. Except by then he'd be gone. They always were.
32

Tanya Huff

THE FIRE'S STONE

33

"And now, Oham, the bath."

"Yes, Highness."

It amused Darvish how carefully the large dresser walked as together they made their way to the small tiled room off his bedchamber. The wizard's potion had overcome much of the damage done by too much wine, but his head still felt precariously balanced on his neck as if the slightest jar would topple it off. Oham knew that, of course, this was not the first such walk they had taken.

The water in the deep copper tub steamed invitingly, scenting the room with a faint odor of sandalwood. Darvish slid into it with a satisfied sigh and lay back, eyes half closed with pleasure.

He moved obediently to the pressure of Chain's hands, giving himself over to both their gentleness and their strength. Not until he was being dried did he remember and stiffen.

"Bugger the Nine!"

"Highness?" Oham stopped moving the combed cotton towel over the broad muscles of the prince's back and stepped away, unsure of how he had erred.

"No, not you!" An imperious hand indicated the dresser should continue. "My most exalted father has informed me I am to be married."

"I had heard, Highness." Oham offered nothing more.

"To a chit of a girl, barely sixteen, who I've never met, for the sole purpose of tying this country to hers."

"Your pardon, Highness, but is that not the reason that all princes marry?" He knelt to dry the prince's legs, his gaze fixed on the blue-green tiles in the floor.

"Yes," Darvish spat out the word and closed his teeth on the ones that tried to follow; the real reason he'd drunk himself into unconsciousness after the interview with his most exalted father.

The third dresser, who stood by the door waiting to serve, the perfect ubiquitous servant, reported to the lord chancellor, who reported to the king. He was a nondescript man of indeterminate age fitting neatly between Oham and the boy, and only the latest in a series sent to keep an eye on the third son, who, having no real power of his own, might be tempted to try for someone else's. Darvish made certain they had plenty to report as he filled his life with wine and his bed with every willing body he stumbled across and he

had the lord chancellor's spies beaten as often as they gave him any kind of an excuse.
With a vicious mental shove, he pushed back the words and the feelings that went with them. For the first time in twenty-three years his father had had a use for him. Except he hadn't been asked, hadn't even been allowed to regard it as a service to the country. It had been a command; with no room in it for the one commanded. You will marry this girl. Consider yourself betrothed and act accordingly. Although Darvish had no wish to be married, that hadn't driven him to the night's excesses.
"I need a drink."
"Highness." The lord chancellor's eyes and ears presented a goblet, filled and waiting.
And that was the other thing; they made sure, these dressers who owed their loyalty to another, that he stayed on the path he'd chosen when he'd been old enough to understand-had been made to understand-his position at court.
Bugger them all. He drained the goblet, his throat working against the barely watered wine, two streams of red running down from the corners of his mouth. When he finished, he belched, yawned, and smiled. Could be worse, I suppose. They could've slapped me into the priesthood.
He stretched, working the kinks out, then obediently followed Oham back to the bedroom and stepped into the blue and silver trousers held out for him. He shifted his shoulders as a white silk shirt settled over them, enjoying the touch of the smooth fabric against his skin. Then he shifted them again, and had to admit he was, as he'd suspected, losing muscle tone. While Oham wound a silver sash about his waist, he tried to work out how long it had been since he'd gone to the training yard. One week at least, maybe as much as two; it was hard to say, the days all blurred with a wine-sodden sameness. He accepted his refilled goblet, then tipped back his head to drink as the chancellor's man began to pull an ivory comb through the wet mass of his hair. The tines caught against the movement and the comb dug sharply into his skull.
Darvish jerked, swore, smiled, and said, "Ten lashes."
"I will see to it, Highness." Oham's voice almost showed satisfaction.
Still smiling, Darvish stepped into his sandals and ran his