"Shirley Meier & S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millenium 02 - Saber and Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Shirley)

had an unusual accent, staccato and guttural. "But the cat was sent to me by
the luck-gods. I can't let any harm it, or my luck might go."

He growled and sheathed his sword with a snap. "Jest see I don see t' beast
agin or ay'all do more n add t' yer fee. I've alus had a hankerin' for
catsltin gloves!' She held his eyes and nodded once, slowly.

"No sign, Cap!" the crewman called. "No swimmers!"

He spat on the deck and stalked away. Shkai'ra looked over the rail into the
green-brown water. Bather drown than be a slave. She sauntered back to her
duffle and scooped up the dice in a thoughtful mood. Spunky little bitch.

Smyna Caaituh's-kin, General-Commander in the Iron House and Grand Captain of
Fehinna, held a page of paper in the flame of the alcohol lamp on her desk.
She poked at the ashes with the ivory stem of her pipe until they thoroughly
mixed into the mess in her ashtray. Then she closed the folder in front of her
with long wire-strong fingers, tying the ribbon, dropping on a glob of hot wax
and rolling her sigil onto it with a small cylinder of inscribed stone. The
smell of the wax mingled with the Iron House's old scents: ancient
mass-concrete, well-tended woodwork, warrior's leather and metal, hints of
tobacco and smoke.

A touch on the china gong, and an aide came to file the papers in the sanctum;
another brought her a jug of pomegranate juice, sweating coolness through the
unglazed pottery surface. The soldier leaned back against her padded wicker
backrest, lighting her pipe and blowing a meditative smoke ring at the
coffered vault of the ceiling, sipped at the astringent liquid and thought.

She was a tall Fehinnan and very thin in a muscular fashion, close-cropped
black hair showing no sign of grey yet despite her forty years. The plain
military tunic of dull scarlet cotton that reached to her knees bore few of
the decorations she was entitled to, simply the golden sunbursts on the
shoulders that marked her rank; for the rest she wore a family signet ring. A
plain officer's longsword stood in its rack by the door, a single-edged weapon
with a brass basket hilt. She glanced up at it, then stared down at her hands
on the desk and traced the soldier's callus on the right as she considered the
summary she'd just burned.

"Divine Solar Light, but things were easier when I only had a cavalry regiment
to think about," she murmured softly; her accent had the liquid precision of a
tidewater aristocrat.

As General-Commander she was one of the most powerful people in the City, as
long as she didn't let either of the other two factions in the Iron House gain
any ground. Which was difficult; the problem with being at the top of the heap
was that it made you the only target for the ones a step or two below.

War is a great simplifier, she thought. And I know just the war to start.