"Clayton Emery - Card Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

church, but so were prostitution and smuggling and lottery games. Yet the
church didn't fire whorehouses and docks and betting parlors.

Byron slithered under a rose bush, gagged on a thorny branch across
his throat, pried it free. Against the damp earth, away from the fire, he
was chilly.

Because they impressed their very spirits into magic-making,
cardsmiths were always cold. Occasionally they froze to death.

His thoughts jumbled. It didn't make sense! Only a week before, the
bishop herself had visited Rayner's house several times, been welcomed as
a guest! Now she burned his house and ordered Rayner captured? What
was going on? Was Byron snarled in some sour business deal?

Never mind, he thought. The guards were still hunting, and he had to
escape. It'd be painful to be collared by angry guards with lead-heavy
staves.

Blundering on skinned hands and bruised knees, gauging his path by
shouts, and hoping half a burning house didn't crash on him, he wriggled
through the gardens for the rear. A tiny gate in the wall gave onto an alley
that ran towards the river. At the docks, he could board a ship and barter
passage to anywhere with his hoard of magic cards.

Sliding under the knotted branches of a rhododendron bush, Byron
found the stone wall, scaled it and dropped into the alley. Checking his
back trail, he saw the burning house lighting the night sky; but here
overhanging trees and shrubs admitted only dabs of orange light. It was
planned that way, actually: Rayner had a public and a private entrance for
customers to choose. A few jigs and jogs, step-hopping with one shoe and
one sock, and he'd be goneтАФ

Two huge shapes flowed from the darkness to bracket him. Muscular
hands grabbed his upper arms, which were neither great nor muscular,
and hoisted him off the ground.

Someone small peered close. Byron glimpsed a hooked nose, smelled
garlic. He knew this man. Horacio, a penny-ante cardsmith, a competitor,
a backstabber.

"It's not Rayner!" rasped Horacio. "It's a lousy apprentice! But tear his
clothes off, see if he's got cards! It was magic crumbled that wall!"

Byron struggled, began to protest, froze.

Horacio added, "Then cut his throat!"
 Chapter 2
Panic doused Byron like a bucket of ice water. Cut his throat?