"McCarty, Dennis - Thlassa Mey 01 - Flight to Thlassa Mey UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCarty Dennis)

come to life. It was a busy place on this day, as it was on
all days. Fat merchant ships from all the lands washed
by the Thiassa Mey lay in the harbor, as well as craft
from beyond the Narrow Strait, far to the northwest. Only
in the last two years had the Strait been opened by the
diplomacy of Buerdaunt's ruler. King Lothar. Now ships
of every flag passed there, all bearing wealth for this city.
For this, Lothar was honored as well as feared by his
subjects; they knew him to be a great man, although it
was for his manner as well as his appearance that he was
called Lothar the Pale.

The marketplace was colored by a blinding variety of
trade goods. So jammed was it with blankets, booths,
tables, stalls, and flimsy portable shops that a person
could not pass from one end of it to the other without
bumping into milling folk and being often jostled in return.
This made it a rich hunting ground for pickpockets. Those
who wished to keep their finances from being surrepti-
tiously altered kept their purses covered and tightly tied.

And there were many reasons to open those purses.
Merchants in dyed linen robes bartered the gold, copper,
and timber from the hills above Buerdaunt for the silks,

4 FLIGHT TO THLASSA MEY

jewels, spices, and slaves from far lands. Musical instru-
ments filled the air with their pipings and strummings,
dancers whirled, and gamblers and gamesters plied their
noisy trades.

From one of the streets that emptied into this great
square appeared an attractive, middle-aged woman. She
was richly dressed. Her bearing was regal and she was
followed by two attendants, although her robes were actu-
ally not those of a noble. She wore on a chain about her
neck a silver replica of the heavy iron collar of a slave.
She was Lady Aelia- She had been sent there to do the
weekly trading and other business of her mistress, Prin-
cess Berengeria of far Carea.

Aelia was tall, as tall as her male attendants, and her
eyes surveyed the turmoil of trade within the square with
an air of detached mastery; she was like a general watch-
ing a battle from a hilltop. She measured die activity before
her, but she was not moved by it; it was something she
would deal with as she wished, but only if she so wished.
She was that general saying, "Yes, it happens the way I
knew it would. I can strike here toward this goal or I can