"Clayton Emery - Lost Empires 03 - Star of Cursrah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

"I'm not meeting any snotty yuzas's sister's cousin's son. I'm not getting married, nor settling down,
and I don't want to learn the family business, so I see no need to loll here plucking my eyebrowsтАФ"
"Won't learn the family business?" Her mother's mouth fell open. "You ungrateful harakh! You
rebel! Six generations now we've traded inтАФ"
"Slaves! I know," Amber shouted, whirled, and pointed across the courtyard.
The family compound, called a khanduq, had begun life as an ancient frontier caravanserai along
the northern coast road to Myratma. Solid as a fort, it boasted walls of mud brick and stone eight feet
thick, a triply defended portcullis, a high archway, and four minarets at each corner. Former soldiers'
barracks had been converted into slave pens without roofs that could be watched from a sheltered
wallwalk. Even now, Amber saw through an open iron door her brothers and a sister wrestling a slave
to the ground to sear her thigh with a cherry-red branding iron. The slave's shriek echoed off the walls
and made a horse kick in the stable.
"There," Amber spat. "A proud family tradition! Well, I've tried it. I've wrestled slaves, drugged
them, tattooed them, whipped them into submission, yoked them for marketтАФand decided that I don't
like it!"
"This 'business' you despise"тАФMother's tongue dripped acidтАФ"puts food on the table and bread in
your mouth, which has been running all too freely lately. Many fine families in Calimshan move
cargoтАФ"
"Slaves, mother. They're people!"
"People with bad luck, forejudged by the gods." Mother's hand waved the objection away. "See
here, little princess. Without trafficking, we'd be nothing butтАФ"
"Pirates? Bootleggers? Assassins? Housebreakers? Why can't we pursue a peaceful pastime? Why
must we live like jackals, sneaking up behind people and cracking their skulls? 'Slavery walks
Oppression's Road.' You may live by oppressing others, but I shan't. I plan to pursue some other
career, somethingтАФsomethingтАФ"
"Oh, surely," Mother cut in, rolling her eyes in imitation of her daughter, "you could find work in
the marketplace, patching pots or cleaning fish or applying gold leaf to chamber pots. You'd have all
the money you needтАФ"
"I don't need money, and I don't want a common trade. I want something . . . uplifting!"
"It's those benighted books of yours," Mother carped. "It's dangerous for a girl to read. It's loaded
your empty head with stupid ideas. Your father and I should have arranged your marriage long ago, so
your husband could ply a rod to teach youтАФ"
"Any man who touches me gets his rod sliced off! And since I don't believe a wife should support
her husband in every decision, I'll never be a pliable partner. Now please excuse me, Mother. I'm late
for an engagement." Amber clattered down glazed stairs recklessly, too fast for her mother to keep up.
Cutting across the scorching courtyard, passing her sweating, swearing brothers and sister without
a word, Amber ducked into the slave keeper's office. From a wall rack she grabbed her favorite capture
noose, a tall hook of steamed ebony with a rawhide handle. The staff was mounted with rings like a
fishing rod and threaded with ten feet of tough sisal rope ending in a noose. Amber had handled slaves
since she was ten, so she knew grabs, blocks, arm locks, chokeholds, and other wrestling tricks. With a
capture staff, she could knock a slave flat, trip him, snag his neck, or pin him before sapping him with
her sleeve cudgel. Competence meant life or death around unruly slaves, and Amber could subdue
almost anyone except an armed fighter.
Slipping from the shack, she debated raiding the kitchen but decided to buy rations in the
marketplace. Her mother might yet rouse Amber's siblings to wrestle her into a locked minaret. It had
happened before.
Whistling merrily, Amber flipped the capture noose over her shoulder and skipped for the tall,
studded gates. Recognizing her, the doorway's charm automatically opened the smaller night portal,
and Amber laughed as if escaping slavery herself.
"We'll sail that gig all the way up the river," Amber announced to the air, "and no one will pester