"Briggs, Patricia - Sianim 2 - Steal the Dragon.text" - читать интересную книгу автора (Briggs Patricia)

"Isslic, but I don't know his family nameЧslave trainers don't often use their full
names."

Laeth nodded. "Especially if he's well enough born to receive an invitation here.
Isslic's a common name; I can think of three or four men who answer to it."

"If it is his real name at all," added Rialla with a shrug. "I did notice something
that might be worth mentioning to Ren, although it's mostly speculation."

"What is it?"

"My former owner liked to travel to find the slaves he trained. He preferred to
take them himself rather than wait until an untrained slave came to auction. He
contended that most of them had already acquired too many bad habits by that
time." Rialla could feel her face relaxing until there was no more emotion in it than in
her voice. "So if he had, say, a slave from Southwood, he probably went to
Southwood to get her."

"Turn around, so I can get out of bed," ordered Laeth briskly.

"Modesty?" she teased, feeling herself begin to relax for the first time since she'd
heard her old master's voice in the cellar.

"I thought to protect your sensibilities. If you want to see me unclothed, by all
means watch," he retorted, "but I can't think without my boots on."

Rialla laughed and faced the wall while he dressed.

"So what you're saying," said Laeth finally, "is that if the girl you saw was from


the East then the slave trainer went to the East to get her."

Rialla nodded. "Yes." She paused and looked at Laeth, who was now fully
dressed. "Did Ren tell you about what is happening in the East? That he thinks the
leader of the Easterners is a magic user trained in the West?"

Laeth nodded.

"Though my master was a Darranian, he was also a trained mage." Briefly Rialla
recalled the screams of her slain kinfolks. "I am no judge of such matters, but I was
told that he'd trained with the last ArchmageЧcertainly an indication that he had
some ability. The slave who killed herself was from the East. She thought that she
was going to serve the Voice of Altis."

Rialla rose to her feet. Pacing restlessly around the room, she continued with the
story that she had pieced together from the fragments of her dreams while she'd
waited for Laeth to wake up. "She knew that such service would include
concubinage, but she didn't realize that it would entail slavery in a foreign land. She