"Cross CHILDREN Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

"What?" Garth's face went red with indignation. "A waste, is it? Our Lily graduated from Overford Academy and went on to become Duke Janifer's senior resident alchemist! She earns twice your father's pay, bribes included. You tell your daddy that."

"I believe he already knows," said Master Porfirio. "Why do you think he hates educated women so much? He doesn't want to face the embarrassment of any more Lilys."

Garth hoisted a chair and slammed it down backwards at the table, straddling it like a horse. "Whatever this is about, count me in."

"Good," said Zoli. "We'll be needing a babysitter."


In the Swordsisters' Union Hall at East Prandle, Pojandra Foeslayer glanced from her caller to the papers on her desk and said, "A favor? Favors for union sisters only. Your membership lapsed ages ago. Can't say whether you still meet our qualifications."

"Bugger 'em," said Zoli, sitting on the desk. "I don't want to re-up. Why feed dues into an organization that no longer meets my professional needs as a mercenary guard?"

"'Mercenary guard?'" Pojandra echoed sarcastically. "School crossing guard. Everyone knows it!"

"That's still guard duty, and I still get paid," Zoli replied.

"So do we," Pojandra snapped. "Go 'round to Customer Service, put in a work order, pay up like everyone else."

"Impossible," Zoli said. "I can't afford to hire as many of you as I need."

"If you can't afford to pay for usЧ" Pojandra stopped short, her words cut off by the point of Zoli's dagger as it tickled the underside of her chin.

"Tsk," the former Swordsister remarked. "And you with a young woman's reflexes. Tell you what, love: I promise not to tell your captain about how an old relic like me got the drop on you, and you tell her why it's a good thing to loan me the services of ten Third Rank warriors."

"TЧten?" Pojandra swallowed hard. "ButЧbut minimum wage for Third Rankers isЧIt'd mean tapping the warchest. We can't afford toЧ!"

Zoli brought her face very close to Pojandra's and smiled. "As long as East Prandle's downriver from Overford, you can't afford not to."


The water-dragon attacked the toll bridge at midmorning on Market Day, when traffic was heaviest. The beast reared out of the river with a mighty roar, sending the crowd into a blind panic. Draft animals snorted and stampeded, pulling their wagons after them willy-nilly, blocking both lanes of the bridge and preventing an orderly evacuation. Farmers and merchants abandoned their wares and scrambled over the blockading carts, but fat times made for fat men and few of them could haul their bulky bodies over a kitchen table, let alone an oxcart. They collapsed in despair against one another, yammering for rescue.

To its credit, the town patrol came running up to the bridge as soon as word reached them, but one look at the rampaging water-dragon petrified them in every limb. (Later, in the Crusty Boar, they spoke of this as "assessing the situation." Their drinking buddies amended it to "close-order wetting yourselves.")

"Is that our old water-dragon?" one of their number gasped. "It looks bigger than I recall."

"Can't be our old 'un," said his comrade. "I heard as ours died."

"Died, hey?" a third remarked. "Don't look dead to me. You ever see the body?"

"No, but a friend of my wife's brother-in-law's cousin told us thatЧ"

"Maybe it did die, and that's why it's bigger," said the first man. "Dead things swell up bad, in the warm weather."

"That accounts for the size, but what about all that thrashing about and roaring?" his companion countered.

"Rigor Morris."

Their discussion was polite but impractical. For his part, Mayor Eyebright would have preferred less debate and more decapitation. His position in the crisis was most unenviable, for at the instant of the attack he was smack dab in the middle of the bridge, manning the toll station. Banning all wet-wheeled vehicles from Overford Market (thus forcing all commercial traffic to use the bridge) had been his idea. For this lucrative inspiration, he got the right to man the booth one Market Day per month, plus the town council's promise to take his word about that day's receipts. Mayor Eyebright would sooner miss his father's funeral (and had) than his assigned stint at the toll booth.