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

infinitely na├пve Madelyne understood what was to happen. She managed to get her teeth around the
fingers of the knight who was muting her, and she sank her incisors deep into his flesh. He let out a yelp,
reflexively loosening his grip, and then Madelyne cried out at the top of her lungs. With perfect timing,
thunder smashed once more, covering her cries so that none heard her.
 That was, at least, what she believed. I think it perfectly likely that Stroker did indeed hear her cry out
in fear and terror, but simply chose to do nothing. Why should he have? He had no particular love for
Madelyne, and very great love for money. If she needed to be sacrificed upon the altar of his greed, then
he would gladly twist the knife himself.

The ironic thing is, it's not as if my mother was a virgin, a delicate flower, or a prude. She worshipped
the knights. They were like unto gods to her. They could easily, I suspect, have had their way with her if
they had merely plied her with a drink or two and a few seductive words. I can't say she would willingly
have taken on the lot of them...but I wouldn't have been surprised. But these were violent men, these
knights. They were bloody bastards, is what they were. Warriors who had no grasp of niceties and
sweetness. Oh, they likely had some notions of courtship and courtesy, but these things were reserved
for noble ladies of standing...not ignoble ladies who were lying flat. Madelyne was not worth sweet
words or seduction. These were men who were still riding the giddy euphoria that comes with war. They
had displayed their armed might to one another, fighting battles that the simple peasant could only guess
at. Now they were eager to show their abilities of conquest in other realms. Realms that should have
been, as far as others were concerned, of a gentle nature. But these were rough men, and gentleness was
not for them.

And so they took her repeatedly, right there on the table. Splinters lodged in her bare buttocks, and
bruises were raised on her upper body where pieces of still-worn armor slammed into her when a knight
moved atop her with less than caution. As for her lower body, well, at first she felt pain, but that was only
for the first couple of "suitors." After that she was numb as they continued to spear her with all the
compassion that a butcher displays for a hog. The numbness very likely originated in her mind as sort of a
fail-safe, and all sensation below her waist simply shut down.

That was how the knights of King Runcible the Crafty entertained themselves that night. One after the
other, and even the one who wasn't a knight, he took his turn with her, and when they were all done, they
did it again. By that point she was not even trying to say anything. She simply lay there like a battered
sack of wheat, her thoughts in a very faraway place filled with dancing unicorns which approached her
shyly as she, virtuous and without stain, held out her hand to them and let them gently lick her palm.
Nearby her in her fantasy realm, the phoenix bird birthed itself once more. High overhead, a great purple
dragon flew by, wings outstretched and lazily beating the air.

She drifted off into that pleasant world, and there she resided until she felt some sort of warmth upon
her face. Slowly her eyes fluttered open and she realized that it was streams of sunlight caressing her. The
thunderous night had passed, and she had lain unconscious upon that hard wooden tabletop, her skirts
hiked up around her waist, for who knew how long. The knights were gone, and the only thing to mark
their passing was the soreness between her legs.

Stroker walked in, and whatever it was he was expecting to see it certainly wasn't that. For just a
moment, surprise played across his face. Perhaps he felt a flickering of concern for the woman. He might
have regretted his inaction of the previous night, for he must have known in his bones what the result was
going to be; and maybe there was a spark of human compassion and guilt that clawed at him, which
rattled his spine and chilled his blood.

If there was anything like that, it passed quickly, and his normal scowl darkened his face once more