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

"Perhaps-" Kendra said, and made as if to rise.

Landry looked sidelong at his wife and feigned surprise. "Oh-are you still
alive?" Laughing at his joke. "Damned if I can see why. I'd kill myself if I
were as useless as you."

"Perhaps it's time to go to bed," Kendra said primly.

"With you?" Landry's eyes opened wide. "God save us. God save us from getting
another son such as those you gave me."

"It isn't my fault," Kendra said.

She had been pregnant with a dozen children, Derina knew, miscarried five, and
of the rest all but four had died young.

"Whose fault is it, then?" Landry demanded. The red bristle on his head stood
erect. "Blame my seed, do you?" He beat his looted silver flagon on the table.
"I am strong," he insisted, "as were my sires! If my children are milksops, it's
because my blood is commingled with yours! You had your chance-" He gestured
down the table, to where Nellda, unnoticed, had begun quietly weeping. "And so
did yon Nelly! She could have given me a son, but she miscarried-damnation to
her!" He shouted, half-rising from his seat, the powerful muscles in his neck
standing out like cable. "Damnation to all women! They're all betrayers."

Edlyn's little girl, startled out other slumbers by Landry's shout, began to
wail in Edlyn's lap. Landry sneered at the two.

"Betrayers," he said. "At least your worthless husband won't be siring any more
girls, to eat out my substance and shame me with their snivelling." Edlyn,
cradling her child, said nothing. Her face, as always, was a mask.

Landry lurched out of his chair, tripped over a sleeping dog, then staggered
down the table toward Derina. Her heart cried out at his approach. "You haven't
betrayed me yet," he mumbled. "You'll give me boys, will you not?" His powerful
hands clutched at her breasts and groin. She closed her eyes at the painful
violation, her head swimming with the odor of brandy fumes. "Ay," he confirmed,
"you're grown enough- and you bleed regular, ay? We'll find you a husband this
winter. One who won't betray me."

He swung away from her, back toward his brandy cup. Derina could feel her face
burning. Landry seized the cup, drained it, looked defiantly down the table at
his family- frozen like deer in the light of a bull's-eye lantern-looked at
Nelly weeping, at his soldiers who, no doubt roused by his shouting, were
dutifully feigning slumber.

"The night is young," he muttered, "are all feeble save myself?" Edlyn's child
shrieked. Landry sneered, poured himself more brandy, and lurched away, toward
the stair and his private chambers.