"Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire 04 - Flight To the Savage Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lorrah Jean)

The mental "noise" of a crowd was more than she could stand in her emotional exhaustion.

As the late-afternoon sun turned the streets crimson, Astra pulled her robe tighter against the chill autumn
wind. There was some consolation in the knowledge that even if she received another punishment
assignment, for the next few months it could not be to suffer the carnage of the games. Todays
blood-sport matches had been the last of the season. In a week or so, the stadium's underground
chambers would be open for wrestling matchesтАФentertainment exclusively for the social elite and
wealthy gamblers.

People like Vortius.

Her stomach tightened in anger. Vortius was responsibleтАФalbeit indirectlyтАФfor the ordeal she had
endured today. Astra had passed him yesterday in the hallway as she was entering Portia's office. She
had not Read him, nor PortiaтАФbut the old Master's face had betrayed annoyance, and Astra had asked
sympathetically, "What was Vortius doing here? Trying to trick Readers into some nasty plot again?"
Reading other people's thoughts for personal profit was against the Reader's Code, but people like
Vortius would do anything to get Readers into their power. There had been a huge scandal some six or
seven years ago, when some Readers from the Path of the Dark Moon had been bribed or threatened to
make them spy on other men's business.

Astra had expected Portia either to comment on Vortius' audacity in approaching the Master of Masters
or to tell her to mind her own business. Instead, Portia had demanded, "What are you doing here?"

Before Astra could protest that Portia had sent for her, the old woman had flown into a rage, accusing
her of spying. "Since you don't know what to do with your powers, I'll give you something to occupy
them!" And Portia had assigned her to medical duty at the gladiatorial games.

It wasn't fair! Portia ruled the girls and women of her Academy with an iron hand, but that hand squeezed
Astra much tighter than it did the others. No matter what the young Magister did, or how well she did it,
she could never gain Portia's approval, or even a word of praise.

I'm held responsible for my mothers wrongdoing, punished for the shame she brought on the
Academy, Astra thought sourly. / thought once I became a Magister I'd proved myself. But nothing
has changed. The Masters and the other Magisters still treat me as if I'm the one who violated the
Readers Oath.

As she approached the Academy's iron gate, the place seemed more like a prison than her home, a place
where she wasтАФ

тАФ-just as corrupt as the othersтАФ

Zanos' stinging thought came back to her, unbidden. The remark was not really surprising, for there was
indeed corruption in the Reader system. Unguarded thoughts and unwanted bits of gossip had impinged
on Astra all her life, but in recent years she had pieced together from them a picture of something sinister
that began even within the Council of Masters, and spread throughout the empire.

That "something" involved Vortius, which explained why he was visiting Portia. Did the man dare attempt
to apply his filthy pressures even on the Master of Masters? No wonder Portia had been upset.

Maybe that's why I was punishedтАФnot really for