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

"Look there!" Zoli wasn't listening. Her eyes were wide, her face pale, her hand shaking as she gestured
across the river to where Ethelberthina stood performing the most hangdog recitation imaginable of the
Prayer for a Prosperous Husband. The girl's apathy was beyond the power of mortal man to measure.
Horse thieves had gone to the gallows with more eagerness, hemorrhoid sufferers had greeted a
recurrence of their affliction with more zest. If youthful exuberance had a direct opposite, Ethelberthina
Eyebright was its personification.



In other words, she was putting so much effort into behaving churlishly, just to show her mother what
was what, that she failed to notice the scrawny, oily-pelted young man who was slinking down to the
water's edge, a look of intense concentration on his sallow face. Only once did he pause and cast a
questioning look over one shoulder. A brawny, stern-faced woman in the crowd jerked her chin at him
brusquely, silently urging him on.



"That's Ludlow Pennywhistle," Garth observed.
"Oh no, it couldn't be." Dean Porfirio shook his head rapidly. "Not even the most vengeance-crazed
creature alive would willingly bind her child to a malicious good-for-nothing like Ludlow. He's a beast, a
coward, and a scoundrel. I had him in my Introductory Invocation class. We had to expel him for
demoralizing the demons. He must be in his twenties by now, and I hear he does nothing with his days
but loaf about the taverns until they boot him out for toughing up the barmaids."



"Maybe Goodwife Eyebright doesn't realize what she's doing to her daughter," Garth offered.



Bursar Tailings had another opinion: "Maybe she does. She's a Pennywhistle by birth, you know;
Ludlow's ma is her second cousin. This way she gets to shackle Ethelberthina with a husband, break her
spirit, and keep the girl's money in the family at the same time."



"But thatтАФ that's not to be stood for!" Zoli sputtered. "It's atrocious! It's cruel! It'sтАФ it'sтАФ it's got to be
stopped!" Her hand dropped to her belt and found only belt. "Damn it, Garth, why didn't you remind me
to wear my dagger?" she shouted.



"And risk having you throw it at someone? Darling, I know you too well: In situations like these you tend
to overтАФ"



Across the water, Ethelberthina let the last word of the Prayer for a Prosperous Husband fall from her
tongue as though it were a slime-smeared toad. The instant he heard it, Ludlow's lips twisted into a
gloating look as he leaped from the riverbank. The girl turned in time to see him but too late to do