"Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 09 - A Wizard In The Way" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

A Wizard In The Way
The Eighth Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard
By Christopher Stasheff
ISBN: 0-812-54168-5

1
Someone hammered on the back door of the hut. Mira turned from the cookpot over
the hearth and opened it, instantly worried-who was ill now?
Little Obol stood there, panting, eight years old, eyes wide with alarm. "Run,
Mira! There are soldiers coming toward your house, and one has a parchment in
his fist!"
Mira's heart lurched; dread weighted all her limbs. It had come at last. She
gave the boy a sad smile. "There's no sense in running, Obol. If the magician
wants one of his people, we've no choice but to go to him."
"You can flee!"
"Yes, to have his dogs sniff me out and his soldiers drag me back to him. No, I
think I'd rather go with my head high and my clothes clean. But thank you, lad.
Run along home, nowwe don't want them to know you've been telling tales."
She bent and kissed his cheek. Obol blushed; he may have been only eight, but
Mira was very pretty.
Too pretty for her own good, Mira thought with a sigh as she closed the door. By
the time she was thirteen, it was clear that the pretty child was going to
become a beautiful womanbut her parents had warned her that Magician Lord Roketh
would command her to his bed if she were beautiful, and Mira suddenly understood
why the prettiest girls in the village wept as they went to the castle with the
soldiers. She had thought it would be a fine life, living in the lord's keep to
cook or clean instead of doing the same work in a peasant but all her life. Now,
though, she understood why, when the girls came back to the village to buy food
or cloth for their master, they seemed either timorous and fragile or hard and
brazen. She vowed it would never happen to her and took pains to hide her
beauty, tying her hair back in a severe bun and staying out in the sun so that
her face would become tanned. She practiced looking spiritless and glum, only
letting her natural cheerfulness bubble up at home.
It had worked well for years, but as she turned eighteen, even the dimmest eye
could see how exquisite she had become, and her magician lord Roketh was
anything but blind.
As were his soldiers. A fist pounded at the door. Quickly, Mira twisted her hair
into a bun, secured it with a bone pin, then hurried to open the door, squinting
against the sun. She didn't need to, but anything that made her look less
attractive would help.
Four of Roketh's guards stood outside, grim in their leather and iron. "Mira,
daughter of Howell?" their leader asked. "I-I am she." Mira tried to make her
voice sound gravelly. "You are summoned to Lord Roketh, maiden. You will present
yourself at the castle tomorrow in your best skirt and blouse."
"Yes ... yes, sir."
"We shall come to accompany you, maiden. Be ready." With no more ceremony than
that, the guard turned, barked a command to his fellows, and led them away.
Mira closed the door, trembling inside. She might be a maiden when she went to
the castle, but only for a day. She wondered how unpleasant that taking would
be, then remembered Roketh's seamed old face, his glittering eye, the touch of