"Suzette Haden Elgin - And then there'll be fireworks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

hooks above her head to her bare feet, with only the nar-
row space cut away at the back to allow the Whip room.
But it did nothing to shield her screams. Eustace Lad-
dercane hoped they hurt the ears of the Magicians of
Rank that stood one at each comer of the cloth, twelve
inches between them and their pitiful victim.

The whipping itself, nowтАФno man could have done
that, though not one had courage enough to stop it It
was Granny Leeward of Castle Traveller, her that was
the own mother of the Castle Master, that wielded the
Long Whip.

She'd explained Avalon of Wommack's grievous sins
to them all carefully before she began me chastisement,
looking all around her with those measuring eyes, count-

And Then There'U Be Fireworks

ing. She knew precisely how many people should be
there on the walkway that bordered the square, did the
Granny. Ninety-one excused by the College of Deacons
for illness near unto death, a sign of sure wicked-
ness in those ninety and one; and seven hundred
thirteen that left to be counted. Eustace Laddercane
was certain mat Granny Leeward was able to count each
and every one of the seven hundred thirteen, and would
have known if even one had been missing. They lined
up by household and by height, the tallest at the back.

There still was not room for all of them within the
Castle walls, and it had been necessary to lay out this
whipping ground outside, burning away every last sprig
and blade of growing life, grading it flat as the top of a
table, anchoring down the board walkway that bordered
it with spokes of ironwood hammered into chinks
blasted out of the Tinaseeh rock. But that was chang-
ing. The people of Tinaseeh, they were dying with a ter-
rifying speed, ten and twenty and more now in a single
day . . . soon they'd be able to take their Whipping
Cloth inside one of the courtyards, right into Roebuck
. . . might could be soon they'd have ample space in
the Castle Great Hall itself, and be hard put to it to find
anybody left to whip.

Avalon of Wommack had sinned doubly. First she
had sinned against the cause that bid the Chosen Peo-
ple of Tinaseeh repopulate this land, to replace the
dying who by their very deaths had revealed the vileness
or their souls. Avalon's father had brought her home a