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

slippery because of a skirt of weed; the coaster needed to be hauled out and
cleaned.

Koru, if I ever complain of having a boring life ever again I give you
permission to rain divine farts on me.

She was hungry, trying to shake visions of barley and mushroom soup out of her
head, warm crusty amaranth bread sopping up the juices from a roast; honey nut
pastries and maple sugar. Even remembering the mash on the slaver made her
mouth water.

She'd driven the knife into the hull just in front of the rudder, hoping that
whoever was on the wheel wasn't experienced enough to feel the drag.

I'm glad that I could speak to the cat, and that it felt like fighting, she
thought, clamping her teeth together to keep them from chattering. Even warm
water leeched the heat out a body, eventually-worse if it was moving. Back
home a person could die in a few minutes if he fell into the river just before
freezeup. Megan had always liked cats; dogs tended to be too sloppily
disgusting for her taste. Even if Shyll happens to like them. For a moment,
homesickness caught at her throat; Shyll and her cousin Rilla, the hard-won
warmth of her own home, the House of the Sleeping Dragon she had built into a
great trading firm from a single leaky riverboat. . . . Enough of that.

The moon was up, its reflection wrinkling in the water, as the long, slow
ghosts of storm waves rumbled in among the mangroves and swamp cypress. She
could swim that far, she thought, when it was just a bit darker, perhaps one
more tack.

The sky was a deep blue silk, edged with orangey gold on one hem and jet on
the other. The diamond embroidery of stars was just showing when she yanked
the knife free and hesitated. She had never liked to hurt a ship if she could
avoid it. On the other hand-

I know this type of merchant, even if they aren't of my race. They'd skin a
tick for its hide and tallow and complain of their meager living while
cleaning their teeth with ivory toothpicks. Trying to put shackles on a
castaway was downright inhospitable and unsailorlike, too. She reached up and
snaked her hand through the hole where the stempost of the rudder met the
under-deck tiller, feeling for the wrist-thick ropes that ran through pulleys
to transmit the torque of the wheel. They were just where they would be on a
ship like this back on the Mitvald Zee. With exquisite care, she sawed at the
rope until it was almost cut through. The mate's knife was excellent steel and
half as long as her forearm, much better than the usual, crewfolk tool; it was
good and sharp, as well.

One more tack and you'll lose steerage; inconvenience you for a day. She
grinned to herself as she let go and let the Radiance pull away from her. A
good-bye present to someone who tried to take me for a slave.