"Peter David - Sir Apropos 01 - Sir Apropos Of Nothing" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

 I decided I sounded too calm, considering the circumstances. So the next bit came out all in a rush.

"He was consumed by second-guessing what happened with Pell. Here he was asked to put down a
simple uprising, and it resulted in a loss to Your Highness of tax income...and yet, to Granitz, that was not
the worst of it. No. No, he had a side that he hid from all of you...hid from everyone except for the Lady
Rosalie, of course. A softer side, a side that was...was...was..." I was stuck, and I slammed the floor with
my fist to get myself going again. "...was distraught, yes...distraught over the loss of life. The women, the
children of Pell, crying out, consumed in fire..."

"I thought he set the fire," said Coreolis in polite confusion.

"Yes! Yes, he did, he set the fire and he ordered the slaughter, but that doesn't mean that inside him,
there wasn't a...another side, a softer side, that cried out against what he was doing. A softer side that
would not let him rest. Call it a conscience if you will, call it a spark of the divine, call it guilt if you
must...call it whatever you wish, but understand that it completely undermined and unmanned him."

"Unmanned him." The words spread like skin rot throughout the gathering.

"What were you doing here?" That was Sir Justus, and he sounded suspicious.

"Happenstance, milord. Pure happenstance. I was passing by the door and I heard what sounded
like...sobbing. It was so high-pitched, so womanish, that I naturally assumed it to be a damsel in distress.
Even a humble squire must attend to such a situation when it presents itself. That, at least, is what my
good lord and master, Sir Umbrage, has taught me."

He had, in fact, taught me nothing of the kind. Nonetheless, the other knights looked at him and
nodded in approval, and he took their acknowledgments with clear pride over having done his job well.

"So I entered, inquiring as to what I could possibly do to render aid...and discovered, to my
amazement, Sir Granitz in the midst of the most terrible lamentations."

"The Granite one? Nonsense!" said a skeptical Justus. I was not ecstatic about the way the burly
knight was looking at me. "In all the years, I never heard him utter so much as one lament. Not a one."

There was murmuring assent from the others. I did not like how this was going, so I raised my
voice--a chancy enough proposition, considering the circumstances I was facing--and said, "And in all
those years, did 'the Granite One' ever once let down his king in the way that he recently had?"

Momentary silence fell over the room as they racked their brains trying to recall such a happenstance.
Giving them time to ponder was the last thing I wanted to do, however. I limped in a circle, accentuating
my bad leg, to appear all the more pathetic...and also, ideally, all the more helpless in the face of an
uncaring and overwhelming fate. "Did it ever occur to any of you that perhaps there were softer aspects
of himself that he kept hidden? Hidden deep down so that it would elude your collective notice? A heart
that bled when his enemies bled, a heart that felt the pain of every loss. But his head, milords...his head
would not allow any of you good knights to see that which he himself found so repulsive: his gentler side.
Why do you think he was so formidable at war on the field, eh? Because he was accomplished at being
at war with himself! Yes, milords, with himself. But this most recent, crushing indignity, this devastating
failure...it was too much. The years of repression burst from him."

I took a moment to try and compose myself, but only a moment, because as soon as one of them