"Dean Ing - Firefight Y2K" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

leather breastplateтАФwithout entirely losing the panache of spirited youth. Tanned by summer hunts,
forearms scarred by combat training with the veteran Boerab, the young Lyrian king fluttered girlish
hearts like a warm breeze among beech leaves. And while Bardel watched the Moessian's unsteady
advance with calm peregrine eyes, Thyssa saw a twinkle in them. Flanked by Boerab and Dirrach, arms
and enchantment, Bardel of Lyris was a beloved figure. It did not matter to most Lyrians that his two
ministers loathed each other, and that Bardel was just not awfully bright.

Thyssa, fingers flying among the tattered nets, seemed not to hear the royal amenities. Yet she heard a
query from Averae: " . . . Shandorian minister?" And heard Boerab's rumbled, " . . . Escorted from the
Northern heights . . . tomorrow." Then Thyssa knew why the castle staff and the fat merchants in Tihan
had been atwitter for the past day or so. It could mean nothing less than protracted feasting in Bardel's
castle!

To an Achaean of the distant past, or even to Phoenicians who plied the Adriatic coast to the far
Southwest, this prospect would have inspired little awe. No Lyrian commoner could afford woven
garments for everyday use; only the king and Boerab carried iron blades at their sides, each weapon
purchased from Ostran ironmongers with packtrains of excellent Lyrian wine.

Nor would the royal castle in Tihan have excited much admiration from those legendary outlanders.
Some hundreds of families lived in Tihan, thatched walls and roofs protected by stout oak palisades
surrounding town and castle on the lake's one peninsula. Bardel's castle was the only two-story structure
capacious enough to house king, staff, and a small garrison mostly employed for day-labor.

The pomp that accompanied Bardel's retinue back to nearby Tihan would have brought smiles to
Phoenician lips but as Thyssa viewed the procession, her eyes were bright with pride. "Remind me to
brush your leather apron, Oroles," she smiled; "if you are chosen to serve during feast-time, there may be
red meat for our stew." Unsaid was her corollary:and since I must play both father and mother to
you, perhaps I too will make an impression on someone.
***

Old Panon was less than ecstatic over the job on his nets. "Your repairs are adequate, Thyssa," he
admitted, then held an offending tangle between thumb and forefinger; "but Oroles must learn that a knot
needn't be the size and shape of a clenched fist. Teach him as I taught you, girl; nothing magic about it."

"Nothing?" Oroles frowned at this heresy. "But Shaman Dirrach enchants the nets every year."

"Pah," said the old man. "Dirrach! The man couldn'tтАФah, there are those who say the man couldn't
enchant a bee with honey. Some say it's all folderol to keep us in line.Some say," he qualified it.

"Please, Panon," said Thyssa, voice cloudy with concern. "Big-eared little pitchers," she ruffled the
ragged hair of Oroles, "spill on everyone. Besides, if it's folderol how do you explain my father's
slingstone?"

"Well,тАФ" The old man smiled, "maybe some small magics. It doesn't take much enchantment to fool a
fish, or a rabbit. And Urkutwas an uncanny marksman with a sling."

At this, Oroles beamed. The boy had no memory of the mother who had died bearing him, and chiefly
second-hand knowledge of his emigrant father, Urkut. But the lad had spent many an evening scrunched
next to the fireplace, hugging his knees and wheedling stories from Thyssa as she stirred chestnuts from
the coals. To the girl, a father who had seen the Atlantic and Crete had traveled all the world. One raised