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

crash and clatter and skitter.

One shod and one stockinged foot shot out from under and he sprawled
in five directions at once. Muffled in his tattered cape, his head banged
something soft, but the rest of him hit hard.

Jarred from teeth to toes, he bounced once on his spine, slid some
more, settled with a groan and gasp. He knew more bricks or slates or
burning boards might rain any second, but he couldn't make his arms and
legs respond. I'm stunned, he thought, like a fish gaffed in the head. Panic
flitted: what if he'd broken his back? Biting his lip, he forced his arms to
move, waved weakly, managed to half-roll. No shooting pains ripped
through him, though many small ones whimpered.
 Like a whipped dog, the apprentice crawled off the rubble. It had partly
buried Rayner's thick gardens. Brick dust and pigeon droppings and
charred wood gave way to smells of mint and chives and roses. It was
black in this jungle, but high above, both faces of the house blazed like
beacons. Dimly he recalled that fact had seemed important when he
awoke. Why?

And what next?

Voices.

"I tell you, someone dropped on these bricks!"

"Didn't! It was clothes or somethin'!"

"Merciful Malaga, it's hot! And I can't see with that damned bright
fire!"

Stumbling steps, curses, clanking came Byron's way. Guards of the
Bishop of Waterholm hunting within the grounds. He'd known them by
their shiny helmets and breastplates glimpsed from above. Soldiers of the
Prince of Waterholm wore armor painted red with three yellow lines.
These glittering blue-garbed guards carried lead-headed quarterstaves,
and Byron heard the sticks slash and stab, probing the garden greenery. A
sergeant bawled, "Keep looking! That fox Rayner ain't been flushed yet!"

"He must'a burned by now! And which bloomin' idiot set fire to both
faces of the house, anyway?"

Crawling under shrubbery, getting whipped and snicked by branches,
still a bell rang in Byron's mind. Ah, that was the significance! If Rayner
had tipped over a candle, or a cook had been careless at the stove, then the
fire would have engulfed the center of the house, or one side. Not two
places at once and not outside.

But, Tongue of Timur, why had the bishop fired Rayner's house?
Committed deliberate arson? Granted, cardsmithing was banned by the