"Glenda Larke - Heart of the Mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Larke Glenda)

'It's very doubtful I shall be coming back for a while. What's upset you so,
Aemid? Are you worried I'll leave you behind, or that I'll take you with me?'
I looked at her uncertainly.
'Could I тАФ is it possible? That I can go with you?'
'Well, of course, if that's what you want.' I was puzzled. 'I had no idea you
felt so strongly about Kardiastan. All I've ever heard about the place seems
to indicate it's damned inhospitable; a hellhole with a climate worthy of the
Vortex of Deadi. Melete's heart, why would you want to return there? You
belong here by now, surely.'
Aemid did not reply. She knelt and began to towel my feet dry with trembling
hands, her grey head bent.
I went on, 'I shall take Brand as well, and I shall keep a skeleton staff here
to maintain the house and gardens, but the other slaves will have to be sold.
I can always buy another household in Kardiastan. You may tell the others.
Tell them I shall see that they go to good homes.'
Aemid's head swung up in shock. 'There's no slavery in Kardiastan!'
I stared at her. 'What in the world are you thinking of? Weren't you yourself
enslaved there? And what of
all the newly arrived Kardi thralls you see here in Tyr from time to time? Of
course there is slavery in Kardiastan!'
'Oh тАФ yes. Yes, of course,' she muttered, flushing. 'I was just тАФ For a
moment, I was remembering how it once was.'
'Aemid, you haven't been there for, what? More than twenty-five years? You
were taken while the Kardiastan Uprising was still in progress, I know, but
that was a long time ago. Those wars are long over; Kardiastan has long been a
province of the Exaltarchy, and where the Exaltarch rules, there is always
slavery. It is the natural order of things that the conquered should serve
their masters. Now go and tell Brand I want to see him after I bathe. I have
the stink of the Cages on my skin and I won't feel clean until I've washed.
You can send Dini in to do my hair.' She nodded, apparently in control of
herself again, but as she left the room, I noticed her hands trembled.
When I emerged from my bedroom a while later, clean at last and dressed more
comfortably in loose trousers and a long loose top, it was to find Brand
waiting for me.
Like Aemid, Brand was a house slave. The red flecks in the brown of his irises
and the red flash over his forehead in his otherwise brown hair proclaimed his
blood to be Altani. Altan Province was one of the conquered nations to the
south of the Sea of Iss тАФ but Brand never spoke of his home any more than
Aemid did. He had been a gift from General Gayed to me on my tenth anniversary
day. Twelve years old then, a defiant boy, skinny and undersized. Now he was a
large man, taller by a head than I was, with a width to match his height and a
strength to match his width.
-''Ah, there you are,' I said. 'Did Aemid tell you what the Exaltarch wanted?'
He nodded. 'Yes, Domina. Or should I say, um, LegataV
A slave's existence had so instilled caution in him that his expression always
had about as much animation as the standing stones of northern Tyrans. Right
then, though, I suspected he was mocking me, but I couldn't tell for certain.
Of all the people I had ever known, he alone was unreadable to me. I said, 'I
think you know damned well that I don't care what you call me, although a
little respect from time to time would be nice.'