"Thieves World - Beyond The Veil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

Already you complain that I spend too little time with you. We would be at each
other's throats, eventually. You don't want that."
"I want to stay."
He disengaged her and walked toward his quarters, an arm over her shoulders,
thinking he knew what she needed. Jihan's appetites, like her abilities, were
greater than a mortal woman's.
"Then you will stay," he said to defuse a possible argument. "But I doubt that
even your father could allow it without some reduction of your… extraordinary
gifts."
"But then, if I gave up some… things, you would accept me? Marry me?"
"No!" It came out of him unbidden, a pure reaction. He tried to mitigate it. "I
don't believe marriage would improve our lot. But you may stay with the band as
long as you wish. Of course, there's the dream lord to consider… You might yet
take a year with him, when my sister is done." "Hhmph. Come serve my needs,
Riddler. That's all I want you for."
She vented her anger on him, but he was used to it. He rather enjoyed her
attempts to make what was consummately enjoyable for them both a pleasure for
her only. Jihan was an infant in an adult's body; her tantrums were part of her
charm for him, and would be until she realized it.
They had worked up a good sweat on his wide, feather pallot when someone came
knocking. "Send him away," she muttered blackly, "or I'll freeze him where he
stands." Jihan's flesh was cool to the touch; that she sweated now was an
indicator of the degree of her passion. She got up on her knees and slapped his
thighs. "Banish him, or I will! Irrevocably!" Cold was her weapon, as was to
some extent all water: she was born of the tides of the primordial sea.
"I'm expecting someone. You've had more than your share tonight. Go look in on
our hostage. You wanted to keep the boy, to 'discover your motherhood'; you
cannot in good conscience neglect him."
Jihan's guilt was stirred by Tempus's inference and she slipped, naked, corselet
in hand, out his back door while he was dressing to let Crit (whose knock he
knew) in the front.
Crit had the foreign woman with him and she was gracious, comely in a
businesslike fashion, lithe, and possessing a handshake as firm as most men's.
"I hear you've enjoyed a joke at my expense, you and Critias," she said without
preamble.
"Critias? Me?" Tempus feigned ignorance. "Crit, you look weary. You know where
everything is. Refresh yourself." And Crit did look exhausted; his lips were
bluish and his eye-whites red.
Crit saluted Tempus and inclined his head. "She's got a message for you. She
wouldn't give it to me, no matter the persuasion. I'm going to collapse back
there until you decide if she's staying. If she's not, wake me and I'll ride
back to town with her. Night, all."
"Pleasant journey, Stepson," she called huskily after him, then unlatched her
mantle, putting her helmet, black-crested and visored, on a hook next to his.
Tempus noted the little unit device on her cuirass: a red enameled horse, the
workmanship raised, the horse rearing with three lightning bolts clenched in his
teeth—3rd Commando.
But there was no rank designation beneath it. "Have you a name, sister?"
"Kama. Of the 3rd, but you'd know that, my lord. Permission to sit?"
He waved his hand. "I'm not your lord, unless you're offering yourself in