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

"Oh, one more thing, Michel," I said. "He's a guest. Treat him with courtesy."
"He won't have anything to complain about, Generale."
The tent was quiet for a moment after Felice was gone.
"I don't know if that was quite appropriateтАФ" Giovanni started.
"If he's going to stay here," I said, "I want him to be absolutely clear on who's in
charge. Besides," and I relaxed slightly, "what an ass."
Lucia laughed. "I agree. Let him cool his heels in the stockade, for an hour or two at
least..."
Giovanni was opening his mouth to say something else when Isabella came in to the
tent. At least Michel was gone by the time she arrived. "Who's the fop?" she demanded.
"An old friend of Giovanni's," Lucia said. "The reformers sent him to take over."
Isabella looked at me with a single raised eyebrow.
"I declined his generous offer," I said.
"Just what is it you hope to accomplish by locking him up?" Giovanni demanded. "Fine,
you get to gloat, but is there really any point to this, or is it just to humiliate him?"
I leaned forward. "I've seen no reason that I should trust him. There's nowhere else in
this encampment designed to keep people under guard. So until I'm convinced that he's
not a threat, he stays in the stockade."
Giovanni snorted. "A threat? That pretty boy probably had a servant to reload his
crossbow, back in Cuore. You're actually afraid of him?"
"I've got enough things to worry about without Felice," I said. "I promise, I'll have
Michel let him out soon. Do you want to go see about the scout reports?"
Giovanni left, still grumbling, leaving Lucia and Isabella in the tent with me.
Unfortunately, Isabella showed no inclination to leave. She pulled up a cushion to sit on
and poured herself a cup of tea. "Generale," she said. "I wonder if I could have a word
with you."
I suppressed a groan; when Isabella called me generale, it usually meant that she
wanted something. She was going to have her word with me sooner or later, so I poured
my own cup of tea and sat back to listen, gesturing for her to go ahead.
"Yesterday you ordered one of my people to scrub pots for insubordination."
"Which?" I asked, trying to remember who'd gotten in trouble recently.
"Gemino."
"Ah, right." Gemino was a short, stocky boy who'd come with us from Ravenna.
Isabella led a unit within my army, but it was made up mostly of "her people," the
old-time malcontents who'd followed her in Ravenna. "Isabella, you aren't going to have
me reduce his punishment, are you? It's not like scrubbing pots is that dreadful a task,
and someone has toтАФ"
"It's not this instance so much as it is a general pattern. The problem was not Gemino,
it was Michel. You should realize that by now."
"I thought I told Gemino he didn't have to take weaponry lessons from Michel
anymore."
 "You did. This wasn't a weaponry lesson. Michel was trying to give my people orders,
and Gemino refusedтАФ"
Now I remembered. "Isabella, Michel was trying to tell Gemino he needed to move the
horses. It was a perfectly reasonable requestтАФ"
"тАФand coming from anyone else, it might have sounded reasonable. Michel can make
the most reasonable request sound like an insult."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Michel needs to be taken down a peg." Isabella's large eyes glared at me from behind
a stray lock of gray hair. "He's unsuited to a position of authority."