"Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Mitchell)

double-edged broadswords scab-barded aslant down their backs, the swords' long grips wound with
silver wire. Elvin stumbled slightly on the uneven ground. Half a year ago, Portia-doctor had reported he
was dying. She'd heard bad sounds in his lungs when she'd thumped him.
It had been a difficult examination. Elvin had thumped her in return, then attempted a kiss.
"He's just a boy," she'd said to Sam, "in an old man's body."
"Then he's younger than I am, Doctor."
"Yes, sir. In many ways younger than you are."
Portia-doctor had apprenticed in medicine under Catania Olsen, which said everything in North
Map-Mexico — and south in the Empire as well. Portia had learned as much as that dear physician, four
Warm-time medical copybooks, and seven years of hard experience could teach.
She'd been pretty those years ago, a sturdy young woman with dark brown hair and eyes to match.
Now, the army work and civilian work had worn her. And losing Catania to plague at Los Palominos
had worn her more.
Howell Voss, commanding the Heavy Cavalry, called her "the noble Portia," looked for her in any
group or meeting, and was thought by a thoughtful few to have been in love with her for some time.
"Why doesn't he just tell her so?" Sam had once asked his Second-mother, after an officers'
evening asado.
"Because," Catania Olsen had said, tightening her mare's saddle girth, "because Howell has lost an
eye, and fears being blind and a burden. And because he believes that Portia is very fine and good, and
that he is not."
...Sam sat and watched the Rascob brothers walk away
down the tent lines. The other, grimmer Sam Monroe inside him began to consider inevitable
replacements for the two of them, certainly following Elvin's death. Jaime's replacement, then, would of
course destroy him.
'Fools do top with crowns, and so bid friends farewell.' A copied Warm-time line, and very old.
The Captain-General of North Map-Mexico pushed his breakfast plate a little farther away, took a
deep breath to calm his stomach, and sat at his camp table with his eyes closed, not caring to watch the
Sierra's shadows — lying across a wide, meadowed valley lightly salted with flocks of sheep — slowly
shorten as the sun rose higher.
Bootsteps. No one in the army seemed to walk lightly. "You didn't finish your eggs."
"No. I've had enough, Margaret."
"Oswald-cook goes to some trouble with your eggs. Herbs."
"Oh, for Weather's sake." The Captain-General picked up his fork, reached over, and took another
bite of eggs.
"Sir, there's no winning forever. You don't have to be perfect." It was a burden-sharing she often
practiced. At first, it had annoyed him.
Margaret stood in bright, chill morning light, watching him eat two more bites of egg. "They had
room to run."
"Yes — if they'd run, instead of fighting." Sam put his fork down a little more than firmly. Margaret
took the plate, and went away.
It was a great relief; he was tired of people talking to him. He stood to go into his tent… get away
from distant murmurs and the troops' eyes, their unspoken concern — concern for him, as if he were the
party injured. They were wearing him away like constant running water. Wearing that lucky youngster,
Small-Sam, away — and so revealing more and more of the present Sam Monroe. Someday, they might
be sorry….
He pulled the tent flap back — then let it fall, turned, and walked out into the camp, stepping on his
morning shadow as he went.
The mercy-tent was the largest the army raised — but not large enough, now. Wounded lay in a
row by the entrance — silent as was the army's pride, though Sam saw some mouths open for cries
unvoiced. He went to those first, and knelt by stained raw-wool blankets. He knew many.