"Naomi Kritzer - Turning the Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kritzer Naomi)

"Martido won't return my bracelet."
I stared at Fiora, baffled. "Why does he have it?"
"I gave it to him when we wereтАФyou know. And now we're not. But he won't give it
back to me."
I glanced at Lucia, who sat beside me. She gave me her faintest wicked grin, and my
spirits lifted slightly. I didn't understand why I was the one who had to mediate these
stupid arguments. Lucia would have been better at it.
"Where did you get the bracelet?"
"From Teleso's keep." Fiora glared at me stubbornly now. "It's mine. I want it back."
"You only had it because I said you could have it, you stupid cow," Martido said,
speaking up for the first time since they'd come in. He sat as far away from Fiora as he
could and still be in the tent. "I saw it first."
"Why do you want it?"
They answered in unison: "Because it's mine."
How did I get involved in this sort of thing? And this was only the first dispute of the
five Lucia had mentioned. "Give it here," I said to Martido, and he reluctantly handed it
over. I studied the bracelet. Teleso must have kept it to adorn his mistresses, or else it
had belonged to his sister. It was a woman's jeweled bracelet, ornate and fairly delicate. It
would look silly on Martido's wrist.
"Generale!" The voice came from outside the tent, and then Vitale poked his head in
through the door. "Generale, the scouts have returned."
I slipped the bracelet onto my own wrist. "We'll finish this later," I said to Martido and
Fiora. "I'll hold the bracelet for now." Martido started to protest, then thought the better
of it and followed Fiora out of the tent.
 Vitale held the tent flap open for the scouts as they came inтАФsix haggard and
exhausted men and women. "Vitale," I said. "Get Giovanni, then fetch food and wine for
the scouts. Then tell all unit commanders I want them here in an hour." He saluted and
slipped back out. "Report, Camilla," I said to the scout leader.
Camilla was a farm girl who had entertained herself as a child by testing how close she
could get to wild birds before they saw her and flew away. Now she used her noiseless
step and her ability to disappear into the dusty ground of the wasteland to scout out the
slave camps before we attacked. She was slightly built, with tiny hands and feet and a
dark cap of short-cropped hair.
She pulled up a cushion and sat down, tucking her feet neatly under her. "Chira is
about the same size as Ravenna," she said, "but more heavily guarded. They've received
reinforcements, and DemetrioтАФtheir commanderтАФhas taken the trouble to train them."
She sketched the camp's layout in the dust. "Like the other camps, Chira is set into a
valley. They've done a better job with the perimeter, though; they built the camp up
against a section of the wall they're building, and used that for some of the defenses."
"The wall could work to our advantage," I said. "If we could get some of our people on
to it, to fire downтАФthe valley location makes it easier to keep your prisoners contained,
but it's hard to defend."
Camilla looked up. "In addition to the keep, they have five other buildings, also solidly
built. And they must know that we start with a cavalry charge, but they haven't set up
lances to impale the horses; I think they want to draw us in, then use those subsidiary
watchtowers to shoot us down."
"Sounds plausible," Lucia said as Giovanni joined us. I briefly repeated what Camilla
had told me, then gestured for Camilla to continue.
"The thing that worries me the most," Camilla said, "is that Demetrio runs drills. I saw
them practicing, and it looked like they were rehearsing exactly what to do if there was an