"Fifth Millennium - 03 - The Cage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Shirley)

The Zak was looking beyond him. "Well, Vhsant, you petit larceny piss-ant, areyou going to recognize me?" The junior clerk eased himself thankfully off the stool and moved carefully aside.

The Head Clerk sat down, almost smoothly. He was a heavy man but not fat, bearded. He waited a moment, meeting the Zak's eyes before speaking; his voice was soft, the pale scribe's face calm, but Yareslav knew he had recognized the founder of the House.Whitlock. It is . Yareslav started edging away. When she found out what had happened while she was goneЕ Under the edge of the counter, where she couldn't see it, Vhsant's hand slowly clenched. Yareslav saw a slight sheen of sweat at his hairline.

He's shaken, the underclerk thought.I've never seen him this, ah, flustered before .

"Woman," the Head Clerk told the Zak, without waiting for her to say any more. "You have some superficial resemblance to the unfortunately deceased owner of the House of the Sleeping Dragon. If you think you can take advantage of a slight resemblance to Megan Whitlock, and take over a thriving business, you are mistaken. Guards, expel them."

Bhodan and Anjevitch rose and stepped forward; they were brother and sister, peasants expelled from the BenaiЧthe Abbey'sЧlands for brawling. They were as tall as the blonde foreigner who stood between them and Megan Whitlock, more massive, with arms and shoulders that had rolled logs, wrestled young bulls, cleared rocks from fields. They had the instincts of professionals; they spread, wasting no time on words, coming in on the foreigner from either side with staffs swinging, ready for their opponent to break the peace-bond seal on her saber. Yareslav watched, fascinated.

Clack. The sister's staff struck the scabbarded blade the blonde stranger had drawn, sheath and all, from her belt-loops.Tack , the foreign woman touched down again from the leap that had taken her over the metal-shod ashwood Bhodan swung at her knees. She turned, pivoted on the balls of her feet toward the brother, moving with a smooth leopard grace that made the siblings look heavy, slow. The brass pommel of the saber snaked out behind her, struck the top of Anjevitch's kneecap with the sound of a butcher's mallet breaking bone. She wailed, doubled, her face coming down to meet a booted heel striking backward and up. There was a crackling like small twigs thrown on a hot fire and the peasant sank to her knees, one hand pressed to her face. She reached a trembling hand to the floor, slid down and lay still, moaning.

A few hardy spectators remained, backing out of the blonde woman's way as Bhodan roared, advancing with blow after blow that would have splintered oak. Somehow the staff never quite seemed to reach the figure that backed before him. She spun, holding the sheathed sword in both hands. It snaked out in deflection-parries against the wood staff that would have snapped it with a square blow. A moment, and the remaining guard thrust his weapon in a move that should have pinned her against the wall behind. Instead, it pinnedhim , as the steel tip clanked immovably against the wall for a single crucial instant.

The saber hilt punched up two-handed, struck his nose; he felt something crumble in the forepart of his head, and the room blurred. A looping foot coming at him, impossible angle, impact like an explosion on the side of his head. He sagged, as the world slipped sideways. He fell to lie next to his sister.

Yareslav, backed against one of the locked cabinets, heard a choked-off sound from his superior. Vhsant was still sitting at the stool, but Megan was sitting as well. On the counter, with her fingertips resting on the middle-aged clerk's bull throat, fingers and thumb along the line of the arteries and dimpling the soft flesh without quite cutting it. OrЕ As he watched, a slow red trickle started out from beneath the little finger.

Megan looked at it in annoyance. "Nicked. Have to file it out." She glanced over her shoulder. Bhodan was still conscious, after a fashion; the blonde woman stood over him, saber in one hand, a boot on his neck below the Adam's apple; she was still wearing the same slight smile, and gradually increasing the pressure.

"Shkai'ra!"

She glanced up.

"That is, in a manner of speaking, my employee." Megan's face was an angry mask, her tone dry, and her hand flexed slightly, harmlessly, bringing a sudden explosive gasp from Vhsant as he felt the outer layer of skin nick and part under the razor edges.

"Killjoy, " Shkai'ra replied, with a disappointed shrug. She lifted the boot.

The Zak woman slid forward. Vhsant gagged and somehow got off the stool; Megan eased forward just enough and her hand never moved from his throat. The other two clerks had backed against the wall, and one made a small sound of protest. Megan ignored him and stared into the Head Clerk's eyes.

"You," she said. "As I understand it from rumors I heard on board ship and in the city, and the evidence of my own eyes, have been dealing with slavers. " Vhsant tried to shake his head, and stopped, very quickly. "You have been using my name and seals to do someЧshall we say, less than moral things. It might be that this was all Habiku's idea, so I might give you the benefit of the doubt.My doorkeeper dead? Two hired strong-arms neededinside ? Barely enough business to supportthree clerks instead of a half-dozen? Vhsant, I won't fire you yet, not until I know more about what's going on, but I think I should have a very good look at what you've been doing." He tried to speak, stopped again as shetsked and shook her head. "Slavers, Vhsant. You know that I hated slavers before. That hatred's gone a bit deeper. Maybe you should see what it is to be a slave?" She raised her free hand in front of his face. A red glow built around her fingers, reflected in his eyes.

"You've never been on a tight-pack slave ship, have you, Vhsant?" Megan's voice was as pale as her face. "You don't know what you've been selling people into. I think you should." He paled, started to sweat, made a convulsive movement. "I spent three days in a middle rank, before we were exercised," Megan said conversationally, though she was breathing hard, white lines of tension around her eyes. "I had a corpse on one side, a child with dysentery aboveЕ"

He was swallowing, his skin turning a pale greyish-green, his eyes locked on something only he could see reflected in the glow of her hand. Then he crumpled, closing his eyes, flinging a hand up to block what he saw, crying, "No, make it go away! Please, Teik Megan, Zar WhitlockЧ"

"Yareslav!"

Her voice cracked out, and the underclerk felt her attention shift for a moment. "Fetch my seals. NOW!" The clerk scrabbled at the officer-supervisor's belt, grabbed the key and scurried into the office. From the open door Megan could hear the rattle and creak as the strongbox was unlocked, the hurried scuffle as he searched for the seals, the slam as the lid came down again. He almost ran across the room and put the House seal and her personal seal on the counter beside her.

"Very prompt," she said and dropped her hands. "I'm glad you recognized me, Vhsant. I'm also glad you've kept my persona] seal. Green jade is expensive. " He raised his head out of shaking hands. She slid down from the counter.

"Until I know more, you're on leave from any work in my House. Get this mess cleaned up, then get out, until I call you back,if I call you back. Yareslav, I saw the healer's sign still up on the corner; I think the two Shkai'ra downed will need him."

The junior clerk bowed. Megan looked up, one corner of her mouth quirked into a smile; Shkai'ra had transferred her foot to Bhodan's chest. "You can let him up now, Shkai'ra. He's finally realizing that he really does work for me!" The Kommanza grinned back at her.

The blonde hung her sheathed sword back on her belt and rose, giving her wrists and arms a brief, businesslike shake. "If this is the quality of the opposition, it'll be easier than you thought," she said.

"I wouldn't judge by this and get too superior," the Zak said. "It won't all be this easy." Megan strode toward the office at the back, then stopped. "I'm closing this office for the rest of the day," she said, looking at the two remaining clients in the outer office, who were still watching as Shkai'ra walked away from the moaning guard. "Accept my apologies, teikas. All transactions are suspended until I clean House."