"S. M. Stirling and Holly Lisle - The Rose Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

Family dignity demanded that she stay under a roof in town. Konzin would be camping with the other herders out on the outskirts.
"See you tomorrow."

"Madine," he said. He touched a finger to his brow and smiled—the first smile she'd seen on his face all day. Then he wheeled his
horse around and cantered out of the courtyard.

For all that she liked Konzin, Karah was glad to see him go. He'd been damned prickly the whole trip, and kept giving her funny
looks. If he'd said she was too young to be put in charge one time, he'd said it a hundred.

She'd shown him, though.

She swung down from the saddle and stood gratefully in the shade of the arcade that ran around three sides of the little square.
There was a fountain in the center, running into a stone horse trough and shaded by a jacaranda. She scooped her broad-brimmed
leather hat full of water and dumped it over her head. Then she rested her hand for just an instant on Glorylad's breast, checking to
be sure he wasn't overheated before she let him drink. Not that she'd run him hard, but Tykis' southernmost province was hotter
than either of them were used to.

He was fine. She checked his hooves, then sat on the edge of the fountain and watched him drink. The ostler peered out of the
stables, and she waved him over. "Brush him good," she told the man. "Rub him down. Don't feed him till you're done, and when
you do, it's to be bean mash and oats!" The man listened and nodded but didn't speak. He was one of those piebald thralls from
across the sea. Karah had never been easy trusting a horse to a thrall. They were fairly common along the coast, so there was no
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avoiding them—still, she had little faith in work done by those who weren't freemen.

She studied Glorylad's gait as the thrall led him off; he walked easy and straight. No limps, no fumbles. She smiled. He was the
better of the two horses she'd ridden this trip, though Windrush was a solid mount, too. With a sigh, she turned, and went inside
looking for food.

Thick adobe made the common room of the inn almost cool, even in midafternoon. The room was nearly empty. In Karah's brief
experience, it would stay that way until near dark, when the locals left off work to gather and drink and carouse until the early
hours of the morning. Karah tossed her gear down onto one of the adobe benches, adjusted the tattered rug that covered it, and
settled at a table near the wall.

"What's going?" she shouted.

One of the inn's workers ambled in, scratching her bare stomach. "Roast a' mutton, sliced, wit' greens," she said, speaking
Tykissian with a thick Derkinoi accent; Derkin Province had only been added to the New Empire a century or so ago. "Or
yestiddays roast a' pork, minced inna pie. Wit' t' same greens."

"Today's wit'—I mean, with—wine and water," Karah said, flipping a tenth-crown bronze coin. The local coffee smelled
wonderful but they brewed it thick as stew and strong enough to melt a spoon. "Keep the change," she added expansively.

That speeded up the service considerably. Karah cut the too-sweet lowland wine with half water; more wine and less water was the
rule down here in the coastal plains, unless you wanted a case of belly-fever or the runs and an expensive trip to the priest-healer.
The mutton arrived, greasy and heavy with garlic and buried under tomatoes and onions.

Southron food would give me eternal heartburn she thought, mopping the plate with a heel of loaf. With enough wine, even it
wasn't unbearable, and now that everything was wrapped up—all but the boring journey home, anyway—she felt entitled. But