"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 2 - With a Single Spell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

hung with silken draperies and heavily carpeted, where a sweet scent Tobas did
not recognize hung in the air. A plump, balding, red-clad man sat behind an
ornate desk, two sailors standing on his right and a slender, white-gowned
woman on his left. The woman stared at Tobas intently; the seated man's gaze
was less intense, while the sailors almost ignored him.
"If this is a pirate trick," the seated man announced in the same odd
accent the sailors had, "we'll make very sure you die before anyone can save
you."
"It's no trick," Tobas said, He had had a moment to think as he was
brought here. "My name is Tobas of Harbek; I was accompanying my master to
Tintallion when our ship was rammed by a privateer out of Shan. When she
heeled over, I was thrown clear and found the boat; I didn't see any other
survivors. The privateersmen didn't notice me, I guess."
"Privateer?"
Tobas, thinking back over the conversation, suddenly realized his error.
"Pirates, I mean; my master used to call them privateers." In the Free Lands
they were considered privateers, whatever Dabran might have said, and Tobas
had long ago acquired the habit of using the polite term with strangers and
the more accurate description with his family. Among Ethsharites, though, it
appeared they were known as pirates.
 "Who was this master?"
"Roggit the Wizard," Tobas replied boldly. That was true enough.
The red-clad man glanced at the woman, then drummed the ringed fingers of
one hand on the desk. "What ship?"
"Dawn's Pride," Tobas improvised quickly.
"And?"
Puzzled, Tobas said, "And what?"
"Where did she sail from, boy, and where was she bound?"
"Oh! Out of Harbek, bound for Tintallion."
"Where's Harbek?"
"In the Small Kingdoms."
"I gathered that, boy; where in the Small Kingdoms?"
"Ah... in the south?" He wished he had given a different origin; he knew
almost nothing about the Small Kingdoms.
The man stared at him for a long moment, then leaned forward, elbows on
the desk, and announced, "I never heard of your master, your ship, or your
homeland, boy, and no ship from the Kingdoms has any business sailing past
Ethshar of the Sands, let alone so far as Tintallion, but I won't call you a
liar yet; some fool from some worthless little corner of the south might just
have tried it. Let me suggest a possibility, though. Suppose that a lad in the
Pirate Towns wanted to seek his fortune, and in a wider world than his one
little corner. He might want to get on board a ship bound for one of the
Ethshars. If he managed it, he'd have to account for himself once he was on
board. Knowing little of the outside world, he would make up a story as best
he could, rather than admit to being one of the Hegemony's enemies, but he
wouldn't do a very convincing job of it. He wouldn't even realize that he was
speaking Ethsharitic with the accent of the Pirate Towns, which is nothing
like anything spoken in the Small Kingdoms, not even where they think they're
speaking our tongue rather than one of their own strange languages. I think
he'd look and sound a lot like you, Tobas of Harbek, who claims to be a