"Vance, Jack - Alastor 2 - Trullion-2262" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

to Ra-bendary, he continued west toward Welgen. Less than an hour's skim across the placid
waterways brought him into Blacklyn Broad, with the great Karbashe River entering from the north,
and the sea a mile or so to the south. Glinnes tied the boat to the public dock, almost in the
shadow of the hussade stadium, a structure of gray-green mena poles joined with black iron straps
and brackets. He noticed a great cream-colored placard printed in red and blue:
THE FLEHARISH BROAD HUSSADE CLUB
is now forming a team
to compete at tournament level.
Applicants of requisite skills
will please apply to
Jeral Estang, Secretary,
or to the honorable sponsor, Thammas, Lord Gensifer.
Glinnes read the placard a second time, wondering where Lord Gensifer would assemble sufficient
talent for a team of tournament quality. Ten years before, a dozen teams had played around the
Fens: the Welgen Storm-devils, the In-vincibles of the Altramar Hussade Club, the Voulash Gialospans*
of Great Vole Island, the Gaspar Magnetics, the Saurkash Serpents-this last the somewhat
disorganized and casual group for whom he and Jut and Shira had played-the Gorgets of the
Loressamy Hussade Club, and various others of various quality and ever-shifting personnel.
Competition had run keen; skilled players were sought after, cozened, subjected to a hundred
inducements. Glinnes had no reason to doubt that a similar situation prevailed now.
Glinnes turned away from the stadium with a new thought itching at the back of his mind. A poor
hussade team lost money, and unless subsidized, fell apart. A mediocre team might either win or
lose, depending on whether it scheduled games below or above itself. But a successful aggressive
team often earned substantial booty in the course of a year, which when divided might well yield
twelve thousand ozols per man.
Glinnes walked thoughtfully to the central square. The structures seemed a trifle more
weathered, the calepsis vines shading the arbor in front of the Aude de Lys Tavern were somewhat
fuller and richer, and-now that Glinnes took the pains to notice a surprising number of Fanscher
uniforms and Fanscher-influenced garments were in evidence. Glinnes sneered in disgust for the
faddishness of it all. At the center of the square, as before, stood the prutanshyr: a platform
forty feet on a side, with a gantry above, and to the side a subsidiary platform or stand for the
musicians who provided counterpoint to the rites of penitence.
* gialospans: literally, girl-denuders, in reference to the anticipated plight of the enemy
sheirl.
Ten years had brought one or two new structures, most notable a new inn, The Noble Saint
Gambrinus, raised on mena timbers above the ground-level beer-garden, where four Tre-vanyi
musicians were playing for such folk who had elected to take early refreshment.
Today was market day. Costermongers had set up carts around the periphery of the square; they
were uniformly of the Wrye race, a folk as separate and particular as the Tre-vanyi. Trills of
Welgen and the countryside strolled at leisure past the barrows, examining and handling, haggling,
occasionally buying. The country folk were distinguishable by their garments: the inevitable
paray, with whatever other vestments fancy, convenience, whim, or aesthetic impulse dictatedoddments
of this, trifles of that, gay scarves, embroidered vests, shirts emblazoned with odd
designs, beads, necklaces, jangling bracelets, head-bands, cockades. Residents of the town wore
clothes somewhat less idiosyncratic, and Glinnes noticed a sizable proportion of Fanscher suits,
of good gray material, smartly tailored, worn with polished black ankle-boots. Some wore bucket

caps of black felt pulled tight over the hair. Some of those wearing this costume were older folk,
self-conscious in their stylish finery. Certainly, reflected Glinnes, not all of these could be
Fanschers.