"Juliet E. McKenna - Einarinn 2 - The Swordsman's Oath" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E)

your thanks are unnecessary. It is sufficient
recompense that you approved my suggestion to
present the blade to your sworn man Ryshad Tathel. I
was most impressed by his resourcefulness and
courage in the face of dire trials and it seemed
only fitting that such an heirloom should be used
once more to defend the Empire, in service of so
great a House.
On that subject, I have a favor to request of you.
I continue my researches into the mysteries of this
ancient magic. As you will know from your own
nephew's fate, this seems to attract the unwelcome
attentions of those Elietimm at large in our lands.
While my wizards have many talents, swordsmen they
are not. Should you be willing to grant me the use
of your man Ryshad, I can certainly put his
undoubted talents to a use worthy of your House. The
more we learn of these Elietimm and the quicker we
do it, the better it will go for both of us.
»¤¤¤«
 The High Road toward Cotebridge,
in the Lescari Dukedom of Marlier,
8th of Aft-Spring in the Second Year of Tadriol
the Provident
How do you apologize to a grieving mother for not being the man who killed her
son? Another might have Aiten's blood on her hands but I was still more deeply
stained with shame that I had been unable to raise my sword against my friend of so
many years to free him from the foul enchantment that had claimed his mind and his
will, even at that ultimate cost. I'd tried to explain away my failure but my halting
words had hung in the air, twisting awkwardly like crows on a gibbet. Had that visit
to his family all been a dreadful mistake? No; my honor demanded it, if I were to be
able to look myself in the eye as I shaved of a morning and see a man true to his
oath.
Things had improved a little when Aiten's father and brothers had decided getting
soaked in homemade applejack was the best way of honoring his memory. Everyone
had told a story about Aiten and some of them even stayed funny when I recalled
them sober. A sour morning-after with a head as thick as winter fog and my mouth
tasting like a pissed-in boot had been a small price to pay.
My smile faded as I recalled Tirsa, Aiten's sister. A middling brown-haired girl
with soft brown eyes and a pleasant smile; the sort of lass you see by the handful at
markets clean across the Old Empire. Only I'd be able to pick her out from a festival
crowd at a hundred paces, and it would still cut me like a whetted knife in ten years
time, she was so like Aiten to look at.
Remembering the grief in Aiten's mother's face as she clutched the bundle of his
possessions to her breast, trying to breathe in the last scent of her lost child, had me
sufficiently distracted not to notice the bandits lurking in the hedgerow. Showers of
rain on and off all morning had left the sky as gray as my mood, and despite it fairing
up I still had my hood raised. None of this excuses my lapse; I certainly should have
remembered that the roads in Lescar are always more dangerous outside the fighting
seasons, as perverse as anything else in that benighted land.