"Mercedes Lackey - Brightly Burning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

here, Lan could see the street beyond the gates, and he watched to make certain they actually left the
vicinity of the school before he made his own way down the quiet halls and stairways and out the door.
Feeling very much the coward, and angry with himself, he peeked around the gates before he
ventured into the street. By this time, it was growing dark, and he was getting uncomfortably hungry. He
hadnтАЩt had much appetite for his cold meal at lunch, and it had been a very long time since then.
The street held plenty of others hurrying home to their meals, and Lan let out a sigh of relief as he
melted into the crowd.
Half of him wanted a confrontation; he kept thinking of all the clever things he should have said,
or how he should have stood up for himself. They wouldnтАЩt have dared start a fight in the middle of the
school, would they? Surely the teachers would have stepped in-
Or would they?
The Sixth Formers seemed very, very confident that no one would stop them. Maybe the
teachers already knew about this petty tyranny and didnтАЩt care.
 After all, they could very well feel that their responsibilities toward the students ended at the
classroom door.
That only made Lan angry all over again, and finally he took the only outlet he had for his
emotions. He broke into a run, and much to the astonishment of those making their decorous or weary
way home, he ran all the way to his own front door.
He paused long enough to catch his breath, then opened the door. One of the servants met him
there and took his bag of books; the family was already at dinner, and Lan joined them without a word.
Sam had been in the midst of describing some experiments with new dyes, and took up the
thread that LanтАЩs entrance had interrupted. Lan was grateful to Sam for once, for taking all of the familyтАЩs
attention away from him. He concentrated completely on his food, driving all the anger and tension of the
day out of his mind. And perhaps that was the only reason why, when he excused himself from the table
and his mother asked him how his first day of lessons had been, he was able to look her in the face, and
say calmly, тАЬAll right.тАЭ
And before she could continue questioning him, he retreated upstairs to his room. Books had
never been his friends, but tonight they were better and safer company than any other alternative.
THREE
LAVAN wondered if highborn children were as arrogant as Tyron and his coterie. The Sixth
Formers certainly couldnтАЩt possibly be any more arrogant.
Now in the second week of his attendance at the school, LanтАЩs strategy of avoiding his
tormentors was having mixed success. By slipping into the Hall behind a clot of taller boys and keeping
his head hunched over his food, he had managed to keep from being spotted at meals while the Sixth
Form was busy stuffing their own faces. But in order to get out before they got bored and started really
looking for amusement, he had to bolt his own lunch like a starving badger, which made for an uneasy
stomach during the next class. They usually got bored with hanging about and left the entrance before he
ventured out to go home, but he couldnтАЩt avoid them on coming in, without taking the risk of being
seriously late. Tardiness brought its own set of problems, not the least of which was the humiliation and
pain of having his hand caned by the teacher.
Lavan had made another major mistake in his first week; heтАЩd tried, shyly, to make up to one of
the pretty girls in Fifth Form. How was he to know that she was the girlfriend of one of TyronтАЩs
hangers-on?
SheтАЩd rejected him quite out of hand, and heтАЩd overreacted by withdrawing from all the girls.
Now the Sixth Formers had another name for him.
Shaych.
When heтАЩd found out what it meant, heтАЩd tried to disprove it, but of course by then it was too
late. Now there was another reason for Tyron and his friends to bully him.
After being shoved around like a game ball and then thrown sprawling for three mornings in a
row, he decided that his best protection was the presence of the other persecuted. So for the past week,