"Dave Duncan - Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

some duke's grandson who fancied himself as a skyman and wanted a private
instructor on hand. Yes, my lord, no, my lord, may I kiss your arm, my lord.
Royal appointments could not be refused.
Yet such a trivial indenture would normally rate only a line in the court
gazette, not a dubbing at a General Investiture. It just did not make sense!
King of Arms was lining them up by rank.
The valet was struggling with the coat, pursing his lips and still not
saying a word. Then he stepped back, his face inscrutable. Sald opened his
mouth
to speak, but stopped when he heard his own name spoken.
"Ensign Harl?" It was Feather King of Arms, supreme heraldic officer of
Rantorra; with parchment face and glacier eyebrows, he was stooped and
ancient
and dignified as death itself. His livery outshone anything else in the room.
Sald bowed and received a barely visible nod.
King of Arms swept his eye over that despicable coat. He could have
recited
every family represented after that glance, minor though they all were.
"Five, four, three, king, queen, prince, king again, one more; the
reverse
on the way out?" King of Arms said quietly.
"Certainly!" Sald was not that ignorant.
King of Arms motioned his monumental head toward the end of the line of
nobles and was about to vanish into the crowd.
"A question, my lord," Sald said brashly, this man being a relatively
safe
target for his bitterness. "There has not, perhaps, been an error?"
The faded old eyes flamed. "Did you say error, Ensign?"
"Yes!" Sald snapped. "I always understood that presentation at court was
reserved to persons of higher lineage than mine."
"So did I," King of Arms said icily, and walked away.
The valet had started to tidy his equipment. Sald reached for his money
pouch, but of course it was in his flying suit, behind the mirror. "You have
been most kind," he stuttered.
"It was an honor, Ensign," the old man said, beaming down at him.
The line had started to move. "No, it was a kindness," Sald insisted.
"Hardly an honor, after a duke."
The valet's smile became cryptic. "An honor to help those who serve our
beloved sovereign and his family."
With his mouth still open, Sald dashed to take his place at the end of
the
fast-vanishing line. What had that meant? His mother, he recalled, always
said
that the servants knew more than anyone else in the court.
He stepped out into sunlight--and the vastness of the Great Courtyard.
Trumpets blared barbarically. Finely groomed ladies and elegant gentlemen,
the
high nobility of the realm, the elite of Rantorra glittering in splendor,
rose
with a hiss of silk and brocade as the noble appointees came into their midst.