"Bunch, Chris - Seer King 1 - Seer King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bunch Chris)

I was the newest officer of the regiment, having been given my
sash of rank not many months earlier. I'd sought frontier duty,
wanting to fight instead of drill endlessly on parade grounds, and
had been lucky enough to be chosen to be a column commander
with the elite Lancers, as my first posting.

My downfall was ironic, because I had been most careful, as I'll
tell later, to avoid the usual blunderings and stupidities of a junior
legate. In fact, I'd been successful enough in a *

patrol against a wizard-bandit to be complimented by Domina
Herstal, the regimental commander, only days before the rol
match brought me down.

Rol is a simple game played on horseback across a wide, flat
field. At either end is a netted enclosure, a foot wide by a foot
high. There are five men to a side, and they attempt, using a
mallet with a handle as tall as a man, called a hammer, to drive a
wooden ball about the size of a large man's fist into the goal. The
game is played to ten points. It was a game I was particularly
fond of, since it called for the best in both man and horse, and I
was quite good at itЧat the lycee I'd ridden forward on the
Senior Team.

The regiment was, as I said, very keen on sport, particularly the
adjutant, Captain of the Lower Half, Banim Lanett. Perhaps I
should explain just what an adjutant is and does, because
someone of his comparatively low rank should not be able to ruin
anyone, even a junior legate.

An adjutant is the grease a regiment's wheels turn on. The unit
commander, Domina Herstal, might walk out on the parade
ground one morning and wonder if the stones bordering the field
would look better stained yellow instead of white. Captain Lanett
would nod, say "What an interesting idea, Domina," and as soon
as the regimental commander was out of hearing would bellow
for the troop guide and within minutes barracks would be rousted
and details of men told off for painting, so when the domina
came out for noon assembly, the area would be marked with
tawny rocks as if a wizard had wiggled his wand. The domina
would never inquire as to the circumstances, and the subject
would never be brought up again unless the work had been done
unsatisfactorily or the domina changed his mind once more.

Captain Lanett was a competent soldier with but one failing,
although at the time I thought him a deceitful, lying bastard I'd call
out if the army did not sensibly forbid dueling a higher-ranking
officer.