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

of her own room. The shadows were deep, only a small flicker from the
peanut-oil lantern in its niche casting a Bickering ruddy light.

"Why did I do that?" Why help the stranger? Not a Kommanzanu thing to do, but
there seemed to be something binding them. Unlikely that they would meet in
the first place, cast together by the strange gods who ruled the sea. Then to
turn up at the same place in this swarming anthill of a city. . . .

Unease crawled in her stomach, like the Fear Snake beneath the earth in the
old stories. For a longing moment, she wished she was home; then she could go
to the sweatbath and throw water on the rocks, maybe get a vision from the Red
Hawk, her clan's totem. Or go to to the castle shaman for a spell against
misfortune. Or at least take her horse and bow and ride out on the clean
steppe, out past the villages and fields until there was nothing but the bowl
of the sky and the cold northern winds. Sweat runneled down her bare skin and
matted her hair; like a sauna you could never get out of.

She looked: over at the door, wedged closed with a scrap of wood for privacy's
sake. She fights well, Shkai'ra thought. Her mind played over the brief
scrimmage on the ship's deck. Strips well, too, she added, feeling a familiar
pleasurable itch between her legs. There had been a nice young sailor on the
ship coming north from the Kahab Sea, but that was weeks ago, and he had died
when the ship went aground up in Joisi. Nearly a month celibate. I would very
much like to take this Megan to bed. So strange, so tiny and so pretty. . . .
Which was one good reason to be pleasant, although she suspected more patience
would be required than she was usually prepared to show. Perhaps the spirits
mean to throw us together. A shaman had once said it was her fate to lie far
from home, among witches and strangers.

At that she shrugged. I can sleep now. If the spirits wanted something, they
generally got it; she only hoped that the Ztrateke ahKomman, the high gods of
her people, were not involved. They had nasty dispositions. A small six-limbed
joss stood in an empty lamp-niche, carved of bone and wood. Glitch, with his
bulging bloodshot eyes and spikey red hair and snaggle-toothed grin. One hand
was extended with a single finger raised, another held a long pin, a third a
feather; the others brandished mousetraps, buckets and gluepots. Shkai'ra lit
a small stick of incense and stuck it into the blob of wax on the statuette's
baseboard.

"None of your fucking jokes," she said to the godlet in her own language. "You
just watch it, or my ghost will chase you down and tear off a pair or two of
arms."

A slight grating sound woke Megan the next morning, and the entire weight of a
tomcat placed on one paw at a time as he walked over her and shoved his nose
in her ear.

"Ach! Cat, stop that!" But she scratched him carefully behind his ears. He
meowed at her and jumped down from the bed.