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

you genuine harm. Calling this lot enemies was like referring to head lice as criminal masterminds. They
had the ability to irritate, but they were no threat. Only one of the "Brigadiers" had any knack for
rabble-rousing at all. I knew him from the old days. His name was Tacit, he was damned goodlooking,
and the women tended to swoon when they saw him coming. But swoon-inducers aren't necessarily great
leaders of men, because men tend to mistrust other men who are that handsome. They start thinking that
there's some other agenda in force, such as seeking out leadership just to get the attention and favors of
the women, and perhaps they're not wrong to believe that.

Besides, Tacit wasn't the leader of the Brigadiers anyway. I don't even recall the name of the leader
offhand; that's how forgettable he was. He was simply stolid and determined to change things, and wasn't
particularly good at making that happen.

The truth was, the Brigadiers really just wanted to be in the favorable position enjoyed by those they
were opposing, which is usually the case of protesters. If Granite had given them just a taste of the good
life, the Freedom Brigade would have melted like a virgin's protests on her wedding night. One of the
best ways to dispose of enemies--even perceived ones such as the Brigadiers--is to make them over into
allies and friends. When someone is not truly in a position to hurt you, that is the time to approach him or
her with an air of camaraderie. Respect. Bribery. The Freedom Brigade could easily have been bought
off. Hell, I suspect they could have been retooled into a formidable squad of tax collectors that would
have put the king's own men to shame.

But not old Granite, oh no.

For Granite was a fighting man, you see. Put him on a field with a sword and buckler, give him a
squadron behind him, point him in a direction--any direction--and say, "Kill," and watch him go at it. As a
slaughtering machine, he was a thing of beauty. There was a tendency to elevate him in positions of
importance and rank as a consequence. It's understandable, I suppose. Put yourself in the place of the
king. You come riding up to a field after the battle is done, there are bodies strewn all over the place like
clothes at a brothel, and there's one man standing there, wavering slightly, wearing tattered armor,
copious amounts of blood (none of it his), and a somewhat demented smile. You would tend to think that
this fellow knows what he's about. Such was the case with Granite.

Unfortunately, what the king did not realize is that just because one was skilled at one means of
controlling an uprising--namely by whacking it until all of its internal organs are on the landscape--did not
automatically translate into any sort of aptitude for handling other situations.

When Runcible learned of the situation in Pell, he sent Granite, convinced that he was dispatching one
of his best men to attend to it. Were Pell in the midst of full-scale riot, Granite might indeed have been
just the fellow for it. But matters were still controllable. Why wade in with a broadsword when a
whispering dagger would do the job?

Well, Granite used a broadsword and a half. He and his men rode in like the great damned king's own
Ninth Army, stampeded through Pell, rounded up a dozen townspeople at random and threatened them
with beheading if they didn't produce the names of the Freedom Brigadiers. The citizenry, who were
upset about their taxes but notthat upset, coughed up the identities like phlegm. Better to live poor than
die with a few extra coins in your pocket.
 Granite then rounded up the Freedom Brigade. What a great bloody row. The noise, the
screaming...it was horrific. They captured almost all of them, and--truth to tell--the Brigadiers didn't
exactly conduct themselves as heroes. Playing at being freedom fighters, criticizing the king from a
distance, declaring that taxes would not be forthcoming and that the king should take his best shot at