"Liaden Universe - 07 - I Dare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Steve)

I DARE

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Day 276
Standard Year 1392
Master Jenn's Workshop
Neglit

They had doubted his skill,laughed at him, by Erlady! Took leave to believe him a once-was—a ten-thumbed, aging Terran, half-blind; incapable of bringing the table silver to luster, never mind to copy a ring.

That had been before the Liadens.

They were Liadens, right enough, with the pretty cantra pieces dandled like candies 'tween their slender elvish fingers and sweet words of flattery in their mouths.

Truth owed Erlady, it were the cantra pieces spoke loudest. A man and his grandson, with three cantra pieces to draw against, lived well, for a year or six, here on backworld Neglit.

And they promised him three cantra more, when they came to collect the ring.

The ring. Now, there was a beautiful piece of work. In his young days, he would have snatched the job up for the challenge of it, no thought of payment in his head.

He'd aged out of that nonsense—paid he would be.Well-paid . And still he had the delicate, brutal trial of the work, the result of which, polished and re-polished until the intarsia-work gleamed like water in the beam of his work-light, proved he was yet a master of his craft.

They'd soughthim out, the canny Liadens.Him , Jen of Neglit Center, though they surely had all the fabled master jewelers of Solcintra to choose from. Yet they traveled to an outworld, sought out an old and fadingTerran master, commissioned him to make— to remake—their ring. And why was that?

The tale they'd spun for Terran wits was simple enough. The original ring, a family heirloom, had gone missing, and must be replaced before certain elders of the house noticed its lack.

Such things happened, drain pipes and gambling games being universally hazardous to jewelry. And mayhap the jewel-masters of Solcintra gossiped 'mong themselves, and a whispered word might waft to the ear of the stern elder, to the dismay of his pretty patrons.

Mayhap.

He was canny enough not to question them too nearly. He had no ambition to risk his six cantra, though he might have balked, if they had wanted paste or light-gold or glass.

But they were keen in their instructions: he was to use only pure-gem, true-gold and emerald. Areplacement , that's what they insisted on: full duplication of the ring that was lost.

A replacement, exact in every detail, is what he had made for them.

He picked the ring up, turning it this way and that, admiring the simple power of the design. Caught in fluid perfection, a bronze dragon hovered, wide-winged, above a tree in full green leaf. Smiling, he set it against the holopic they had given him of the original.

"I witness ye'd deceive the master who made yon," he told the copy fondly.

"Indeed, it is remarkable work," said a strongly accented voice at his elbow.

The master jeweler started badly and jerked around on his stool, frowning down at the pale-haired Liaden in his costly leather jacket. "Enough to give a body his death, sneak-footing behind one!" He caught himself up, looked from his visitor to the workroom door, with the bell hung above it, that jangled when one of his rare customers came in from the street.

He looked back to the Liaden's smooth, emotionless face. "How came ye?"

The Liaden gestured behind him, to where the inner door stood ajar. "Through the house."