"Combat Shopping" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martindale Lee)

Oh, there was plenty of armor there, neat piles of mail shirts, rows of breastplates, stacks of greaves, and racks of helmets. And every single one of them had been painted black, dark brown or olive. It was, to Horatia's eye, decidedly drab, and so odd that she asked the woman about it.

"Isn't it wonderful?" came the bubbly reply. "Dark colors are so slimming, don't you think? A Llaene Briant exclusive, guaranteed to take twenty pounds off your appearance."

And add twenty gold pieces to the price, Horatia retorted mentally, not to mention making it nearly impossible to tell anything about the metal and workmanship involved. But this was, so far, the closest she'd come to finding what she needed. Which brought her nosefirst into the next obstacle: the question of sizes.

"Another exclusive," the saleswoman informed her brightly. "Our sizing charts are formulated to promote self-esteem among our customers. For example, a woman who wears Forgecroft Standard 16 is a Size 8 here. And no nasty numbers like 20 or 22; we have 1X. All the way up," and here she almost squealed in delight, "to 3X!"

Having determined that she had absolutely no idea what size she took in either system, Horatia submitted herself to the saleswoman's measuring string. Her patience, already weakened, slipped even further as the woman commented on each measurement she took, first with clucking noises, then with a running commentary about the Wizard Simmonius and how his Diminishing Spells would work wonders on the warrior's "overplump" physique. "Overplump for what?" snapped Horatia.

After much tag-looking and stock-shuffling, Horatia was handed a mail shirt to try on. The shirt's tail had barely settled around her ankles when the saleswoman trilled, "Ooooh, that looks wonderful on you!" For Horatia, it was the last straw.

"Were you born a twit or was it something for which you had to study? What this looks like is something proportioned for someone at least eight hands taller than me with no bosom and even less muscle. It's so narrow in the shoulders that raising my sword arm will cut off the circulation to my head. That is, if the shabby materials and shoddy workmanship don't part like a bargirl's virtue. Don't you have any pride in what you offer for sale?"

"I don't know how it is in whatever barbarous land from which you come, but around here, we big girls have to settle for what we can get. We should feel lucky there's anything at all like this in our sizes."

"Where I come from," Horatia said as she peeled chain mail over her head, "we big girls are called women, and the only luck involving this trash would be in it not getting me killed."

* * *
So it was that the evening found Horatia in the common room of her lodgings, nursing a tankard of ale and a bad attitude. The innkeeper's hearty dinner and commiserations over her plight had had some restorative effects, but she was still thoroughly disgusted, not to mention frustrated, angry and tired, more or less in that order. And a disgusted Horatia the Heroic, not to mention one who was frustrated, angry and tired, more or less in that order, was not a woman to be approached with trivial matters. The one lothario to do so had been shown the error of his ways in devastatingly short order, and the rest had, apparently, taken notes.

Or perhaps not. "Mind if I join you?" asked a deep baritone voice as two tankards slid onto the table.

Horatia looked around and drew breath to say, "Yes, I do mind. Move along." And was stopped by the merriest blue eyes she'd ever seen. That they were even with her own caused her to refocus and look again. Horatia had heard of people born normal-sized from the waist up and small from the waist down, but until now she'd never seen one.

"I'm Siorce. And I think I may be the solution to the problem the innkeep tells me you have. Your next ale is on me while I tell you how."

Siorce Halfleg claimed to be an armorer, a claim that Horatia could almost believe. The calloused hands, the muscles in the arms and shoulders, the heat-creased face were, indeed, those of someone who worked with fire and forge. And the story he told wasn't all that farfetched, either.

Born the only son of a crafter of armor and arms, Siorce's father had decided to teach him the trade despite his "deformity." He'd been well into his training, the equivalent of guild-standard journeyman, when slavers had taken him far from his homeland and sold him as a novelty to a nobleman's retinue. By the time that nobleman had visited Forgecroft, the novelty had worn off, and Siorce was sold again, this time to a blacksmith and farrier who put his background to limited use. With that master's death had come his freedom, the shop and a decent living. But not the one thing he wanted: the right to call himself a Master Armorer and ply the trade to which his father had trained him.

"For that," Siorce continued, "I need a thousand gold for the fee and a project so unique, so innovative, that not considering it a masterwork would be unthinkable. And you, madam warrior, are that project."

* * *
The next morning, Horatia moved out of the inn and into a tiny but comfortable room behind Siorce's shop. The armorer wanted her available for fittings and adjustments and offered her room and meals in exchange. And avail he did, frequently and at all hours that he worked, which wasЧduring the next two and a half weeksЧclosely akin to all hours.

Not that Horatia really minded. Siorce's wife, a pleasant and intelligent young woman who was nearly as deft a hand at knitting mail as her husband, set a fine table. And the pleasure of watching Siorce measure, mold, fit, adjust, tweak and otherwise sculpt each piece was well worth being nudged out of bed, however frequently.

So it was that on a morning not quite three weeks from her arrival in Forgecroft, Horatia the Heroic went before the Guild Elders wearing armor worthy of her name, armor that fit her like a second skin and felt as strong as dragonscale of legend. Armor that added to the impact of her leaning over the High Table and asking, in a deceptively quiet voice, what exactly it was about the work of Siorce Halfleg that made it ineligible for consideration for Master status. Armor that stood up to the subsequent and remarkably rigorous inspection.

And so it was that Horatia rode out of Forgecroft the following morning with a purse considerablyЧand voluntarilyЧlightened and a head hosting a hangover worthy of the celebration she'd enjoyed the night before. Siorce and his wife had been insistent that she owed them no more than the thousand gold pieces paid as fee to the Guild. Only sweet reasonЧand the steady application of equal parts peatliquor and good-natured threatsЧhad convinced them to take an additional fifteen hundred. As far as Horatia was concerned, she'd gotten the far better of the deal.

One other thing did Horatia carry: a promise to herself and the gods of what would happen to Asaria should anything happen to this armor.