"Walter Jon Williams - Woundhealer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

As if anyone would dare.


The banquet was over. Lord Landry's soldiers dozing in their chairs or stumbling
off into dark comers to sleep on pallets. Only the lord's family remained-they
and Nellda-all frozen in their chairs by his glacier-blue eyes, eyes that darted
suspiciously from one to the next-weighing, judging, finding everyone wanting.

Derina looked only at her plate.

Landry took a long drink of plundered brandy. He had been drinking all night but
the effects were slight: a shining of the forehead, a slow deliberation of
speech. "Where is the son I need?" he said.

Reeve looked up in surprise from his own cup-he had thought he was the favored
one tonight. He swallowed, tried to think how to respond, decided to speak, and
said the wrong thing.

Anything, Derina knew, would have been the wrong thing.

"I'll be the son you want, Father."

Landry swung toward his younger son, every bristle on his head erect. Slowly his
tongue formed words to the song,

"See the little simpleton
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a simpleton -
By God, perhaps I am!"

Reeve's face flushed; his lower lip stuck out like a child's. Landry went on:
"Perhaps I am such a fool, begetting a child like you. You? D'you think killing
a few camp followers makes you a man? D'you think you have the craft and cunning
to hold on to anything I give you? Nay-you'll piss it away in a week, on drink


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and gambling and girls from the Red Temple."

Reeve turned away, face blood-red. Landry's eyes roved the table, settled on his
older son. "And you-what have you to say?"

Nothing, Derina knew. But the old man had him trapped, obliged him to speak.

"What d-d'you wish me to say?" Norward said.

Landry laughed. "Such an obedient boy! Bad eyes, bad tongue, no backbone. Other
than that-" He laughed again. "The perfect heir!"