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

But. But. There was always a but. She got up and paced the office.

The merchants. Illizbuah had suffered less than the countryside during the
Five Nations War, and the opening of the trans-Lannic trade was bringing in
incredible wealth. All of which, and its attendant power, went to the urban
patricians, not to the landowners who should have it, by ancient hereditary
right.

Not to mention the Guild of the Wise. Scholars, officially-there were rumors
of magic-were just barely tolerated by the priesthood, who resented their
breaking the clerical monopoly on higher learning. Very valuable as navigators
and mechanicians, doctors and numerators, and heavily patronized by the
merchant community . . . and the state.

War was a long-term investment; taxes would go up, they'd have to, and quite a
few shaaid, the lowest caste, would starve to death. She shrugged off the
thought. There were always more.

The merchants would see their profits squeezed and the expansion of the
trans-Lannic colonies slowed. Military contracts could not begin to
compensate, and then again, with territorial expansion the aristocracy would
be fully back in the saddle again.

She looked out; the window was above the roof level of much of the Iron House,
and looked out over the City, at the flame on the golden dome of the temple,
at hectares of jumbled red-tiled roofs, towers and gardens and tenement
blocks.

I'll get the High Priest on my side, however I do it, and once this war starts
I'll be secure. All I have to do is get Cubilano to hear me and hope that the
Sun-On-Earth takes no notice what games her faithful are playing. She picked
up the folder on her desk. I'll let him see these if he seems . . .
reasonable. She signed herself again. The Sun-On-Earth might well listen to
rival voices ... or not listen at all.

The God-King could be ... alarming.

CHAPTER II

The Radiance slowed, coasting in toward the shore on her larboard tack. The
water warmed a little, a sign that the bottom was shelving, and tackle rattled
as the ship prepared to come about and head into the bay. Megan raised her
head, trying to see in the spray, looking up from where she clung by one hand
to the leading edge of the rudder of the ship; the other cramped, wrapping
around the hilt of the knife driven into the hull.

When she'd gone over the side, the ship had been making two knots, just
getting under way after having cast loose the hatch cover that had been her
raft. She'd been scraped by the barnacles of the hull and knocked under once
but stayed close enough to grab. The hull right here was fairly smooth,