"John Moore - Heroics for Beginners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore John)

none of that. No.

Well, okay, there wassome bodice ripping. But, really, most of it was consensual.

And years ago, in one of these fairy-tale kingdoms, a man named Eric Timberline ascended the throne of
Rassendas. He was a fair and just ruler. He maintained a powerful army, but thanks to clever diplomacy
and alliances he managed to avoid war. He kept the roads in good repair. He improved the schools. He
discriminated against all ethnic groups equally. Eric was a good king, but he was not called King Eric the
Good. There already was an Eric the Good of Calvados, so King Eric of Rassendas became known as
Not-Eric-the-Good-the-Other-One.

Needless to say, he didn't care much for this nickname. It seemed to imply that if he was not Eric the
Good, then he was Eric the Bad. He could see it coming. All it would take would be one lazy historian,
and he would be down in the books forever with an unwanted nickname. He was determined to stop it.
For a while he involved himself in the Rassendas court system, hoping to earn the name of Eric the Just.
But he didn't have the devious mind necessary to succeed at law. A number of churches hinted that, for
an appropriately large donation, they could arrange for him to become Eric the Pious. This was entirely
too sleazy for him. His worst idea was to seduce a large number of women, in the hope of getting a name
like Eric the Sexy. His advisors warned him that this plan had a high potential for backfiring. Eric didn't
listen, but he fell in love with the next woman that hopped into bed with him, married her, and forgot the
seduction scheme. Eric the Philanderer was not the reputation he was looking for.

It was the merest chance that solved his problem. One bright sunny day, while riding through the city, he
looked in a shop window and saw a pair of spectacles with smoked glass lenses. King Eric dismounted
and handed the reins to an assistant. He went into the shop. The spectacles, he was informed, were
designed for explorers who had to cross sun-beaten deserts or glaring ice fields. King Eric bought a pair.
He tried them on. He liked the way they made him look. He liked them so much, in fact, that he took to
wearing them all the time, even at night. And a few months later he discovered, to hisdelight, that he was
now being referred to as Eric the Totally Cool.

***

Prince Kevin of Rassendas was a long way from home, and he was thinking of his own reputation. It is
when you are away from home, surrounded by strangers who know little of your past achievements, that
your reputation becomes important. If his father was Eric the Cool, and Kevin was simply Prince Kevin,
did that mean Kevin was not cool? It is disconcerting for a young man to think that his father is cooler
than he is. That's not what fathers are for.

"Kevin the Good," he murmured to himself. "That would be bad.Kevin the Bad. That would be good.
Kevin the Nice would be the worst."

"Beg pardon, sire?" said his valet.

"The hot babes don't go for nice guys," explained Kevin. "They think they're boring. Girls like bad boys.
They think bad guys are exciting."
"Yes, sire."

The Prince of Rassendas carefully adjusted his cuffs, flicking an imaginary speck of dust off the lace. His
expression, when he looked at himself in the mirror, was perhaps a trifle smug. Light brown hair flowed
over the carefully starched pleats of his collar and tumbled about his shoulders. His strong hands adjusted