"Juliet E. McKenna - Einarinn 3 - The Gambler's Fortune" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E)

errant wisps of dyed horsehair. I let these fall inconspicuously onto a brazier burning
incense in the doorway of a little shrine to Halcarion. The smoke could carry my
thanks to the Moon Maiden, for keeping my luck bright for another day.
Five chimes rang from the nearby Wool Audit Hall and a hurrying peddler
bumped into my back as I halted. I scowled at him, suspicious hands checking
purse and belt-pouch, but a second glance showed he was no pickpocket.
"Your pardon, fair festival," he muttered, trying unsuccessfully to keep to the
flagway; the gutters were already choked with dung and garbage. The holiday was
barely started but the city's population was doubling or trebling for the Equinox fair.
Still, by the end of five days' celebrations there would be drunks and paupers
enough buying their way out the Watch's lock-up by clearing the streets.
Tall wooden houses loomed over the cobbled street, three and four stories high;
each stepped a little farther out. The newly limewashed plaster of the walls shone
bright against the dark oak beams in the spring sunshine. Shutters swung open above
my head as some busy housewife hung featherbeds out to air. Dust billowed from
open doorways as floors were swept clean for the festivities. Memories ten years or
more past teased me. I could almost have been back in Vanam, Selerima's nearest
rival among the great trading cities dotted among the patchwork of fiefdoms that
make up Ensaimin. But I had taken myself off from my so-called home and fallen by
Halcarion's grace into the far more rewarding, if more risky, life of chance and
gaming. I was no harried housemaid, roused before dawn to scrub and fettle.
Looking down at my well-kept hands, remembering them red with toil and a winter's
chilblains, I rebuked myself and slipped off the gaudy ring I'd been wearing as I
separated the local clods from their coin. Some Watchman more alert than most
might just be looking for such a bauble.
A more distant tower struck its own brazen version of noon with a handful of
rising notes. I gathered my wits; the diverse opportunities of the fair were distracting
me. This was no time to be yearning for a high-stakes game of runes or raven. The
game I was setting the board for promised to set me up for life, if I made the play
successfully. I just needed the final pair of pieces. Walking briskly past the tuppenny
liquor houses where I'd spent that morning turning a pretty profit, I took a narrow
alley to the off-hand and came out onto the broad, sunlit sweep of the high road.
There it was, the lofty tower of the guilds' Conclave Hall, decked out with flags and
pennants to proclaim Selerima's wealth and power to all and sundry flocking to the
fair from ten days' travel in any direction. All the adornments couldn't disguise the
ramparts, the watchtowers and the high narrow embrasures for the crossbow men,
though. It might be a handful of generations since Selerima last had to fight for its
rights but the city fathers still make sure young men do their militia drills in the
exercise halls maintained by each guild. I wondered about trying my luck in a few of
them. No, no one would be shooting bales of old hay full of arrows with all the fun
of the fair to be had.
If the Conclave Tower was to my sword-hand, I needed to go uphill. I wove
through excited crowds with practiced ease to the luxuriously appointed, stone-built
inn where I was currently sleeping. Sleeping very well too, on soft goose feathers
and crisp linen, a meek lass hurrying to light my fire and bring hot water for my
washstand first thing every morning. High spirits put a spring in my step as I
sauntered toward the gentlefolk's parlor.
"Livak, at last! I was wondering where you had got to." My current traveling
companion hurried down the stairs. The dour expression on his thin face did nothing
to dampen my sunny mood. "You could have left a note or message," complained