"Esther M. Friesner - Troll By Jury" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

"Good enough for me," said the troll. "Consider 'em dropped."



"Me, too," Ludlow said eagerly.



"After what she did to us?" Goodwife Eyebright snapped. Her hand, grown strong and swift in the
ministering of domestic justice to her helpless brood, shot out and grabbed him by the ear. "If it weren't
for her and her prodigal troll-flinging, we'd both have what we wanted by now."



"I don't care." Ludlow squealed and squirmed. "What good's a dowry if I'm dead? You want your kid
married off so bad, you fight the tin-plated bitch!"



"All right," said Goodwife Eyebright. "I will."

***

"Did I miss anything?" Garth Justi's-son asked Dean Porfirio as he sidled along the row of benches
ringing the duke's arena. Normally the sand-covered enclosure was reserved for riding exhibitions, but
today it had been hastily judged the best site for the upcoming trial-at-arms.



"Not a thing." The wizard reached into a paper cone filled with salted nuts and munched primly. It was
amazing how fast word of the combat had spread, fetching still more people to the ducal palace grounds.
With the crowds came hucksters of every stripe. They seemed to swarm out of the ground, like maggots
in meat, which coincidentally was what some of them were selling.



"Sorry I took so long," Garth muttered, sitting down. "I had to teach Ludlow some manners. He might
be walking normally by next Market Day, if he finds an ice pack. No whelp calls my Zoli a bitch and gets
away with it."
The wizard stuck the paper poke under Garth's nose. "Nuts?"



"Fair enough, she is that. But only a little, and I think our Lily caught it from her. Trial by combat to the
death, no less! What was going through that girl's head?"



"Probably the notion that she could save you a lot of legal woes. She believed they'd all drop their cases
because no one would be fool enough to fight Zoli." The wizard ate some more nuts. "Never