"David Drake - General 03 - The Anvil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Snaggled yellow teeth showed in a grin. "Ain't no sheep nor yet any
cattle inna chimbley, ser," M'lewis answered in the rasping nasal
accent of Descott "An' ridin' dogs, mostly they're inna stable. No use
comin' down t'chimbly then, is there?"
The other Companions chuckled, then rose in a body. The crowd surged
away from them, and split as Suzette Whitehall swept through.
Messa Suzette Emmenalle Forstin Hogor Wenqui Whitehall, Raj thought.
Lady of Hillchapel. My wife.
Even now that thought brought a slight lurch of incredulous happiness
below his breastbone. She was a small woman, barely up to his shoulder,
but the force of the personality behind the slanted hazel-green eyes
was like a jump into cool water on a hot day. Seventeen generations of
East Residence nobility gave her slim body a greyhound grace, the tilt
of her fine-featured olive face an unconscious arrogance. Over her own
short black hair she was wearing a long blond court wig covered in a
net of platinum and diamonds. More jewels sparkled on her bodice, on
her fingers, on the gold-chain belt. Leggings of embroidered torofib
silk made from the cocoons of burrowing insects in far-off Azania
flashed enticingly through a fashionable split skirt of Kelden lace.
Raj took her hand and raised it to his lips; they stood for a moment
looking at each other.
A metal-shod staff thumped the floor, and the tall bronze panels of the
Audience Hall swung open. The gorgeously robed figure of the Janitor -
- the Court Usher -- bowed and held out his staff, topped by the
star symbol of the Civil Government.
Suzette took Raj's arm. The Companions fell in behind him,
unconsciously forming a column of twos. The functionary's voice boomed
out with trained precision through the gold-and-niello speaking
trumpet:
"General the Honorable Messer Raj Ammenda Halgern da Luis Whitehall,
Whitehall of Hillchapel, Hereditary Supervisor of Smythe Parish,
Descott County! His Lady, Suzette Emmenalle -- "
Raj ignored the noise, ignored the brilliantly-decked crowds who waited
on either side of the carpeted central aisle, the smells of polished
metal, sweet incense and sweat. As always, he felt a trace of annoyance
at the constriction of the formal-dress uniform, the skin-tight crimson
pants and gilt codpiece, the floor-length indigo tails of the coat and
high epaulets and plumed silvered helmet. . . .
The Audience Hall was two hundred meters long and fifty high, its
arched ceiling a mosaic showing the wheeling galaxy with the Spirit of
Man rising head and shoulders behind it. The huge dark eyes were full
of stars themselves, staring down into your soul.
Along the walls were automatons, dressed in the tight uniforms worn by
Terran Federation soldiers twelve hundred years before. They whirred
and clanked to attention, powered by hidden compressed-air conduits,
bringing their archaic and quite nonfunctional battle lasers to salute.
The Guard troopers along the aisle brought their entirely functional
rifles up in the same gesture. They ignored the automatons, but some of
the crowd who hadn't been long at Court flinched from the awesome
technology and started uneasily when the arclights popped into blue-