"Moon, Elizabeth - Deed Of Paksenarrion - 02 - Divided Allegiance V1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

"But he'd been a pirate!"
"Yes, I know. He wasn't thinking clearly, perhaps. Then he hired a lot of local toughs, dressed them in the old colors of Immer, and tried to parley with the Duke of Fall."
"Huh. And came out with a whole skin?"
"He wasn't stupid enough to put it in jeopardyЧthis took place on the borders of Fallo. The Duke reacted as you might expect, butЧwellЧhe didn't much care what happened in the southern forest, as long as it didn't bother him. And, so his men say, he's longsightedЧwon't make an enemy unnecessarily."
"But what about Siniava?"
"Well, Alured wasn't being accepted as Duke of Immer any more than Siniava was accepted as Count of the South Marches. Now this bit I got from one of Alured's men. Siniava promised Alured the dukedom if he'd break up the Immer River shipping, and protect Siniava's movements in the area. Thats why no one could trace him after Rotengre."
"Yes, butЧ"
"But a couple of things happened. First, Andressat. Andressat didn't accept Alured's claim, but he was polite: read the scroll, said he could understand Alured's feelings, but pushed the decision off on the Duke of Fall. He let Alured look at his archives, and said if Fallo was ever convinced, he'd back him. So when Siniava tried to get Alured to move on Andressat's flank, he wouldn't. Then the wood-wanderers: you remember that old man we met in Kodaly, that time?' Stammel nodded. "Alured had befriended them when he moved into the forest, so they were on his side. Same time, our Duke had befriended them for years in the north, and northern Aarenis. From that, our Duke knew what Alured wanted. And he knew what Fallo wanted, which was to marry into a northern kingdomЧand he knew that Sofi Ganarrion had a marriageable childЧ"
"But Soft's not a kingЧ"
"Yet. Remember what he's always said. And with Fallo behind himЧ"
"Gods above! You meanЧ"
"Somehow our Duke and the Halveric convinced the Duke of Fall that Alured's help in this campaign was worth that much to him. So the Duke of Fall agreed to back Alured's claim, and Andressat fell into line, and we got passage through the forest and Siniava didn't."
Paks shivered. She had never thought of the maneuvering that occurred off the battlefield. "But is Alured really the Duke of Immer?"
Vossik shrugged. "He has the title. He will be ruling. What else?"
"But if he's not reallyЧby blood, I meanЧ"
"I don't see that it matters. He'll be better as a duke than a pirate: he'll have to govern, expand trade, stop robbingЧ"
"Will he?" Haben looked around the whole group before going on. "I wouldn't think, myself, that a pirate-turned-brigand would make a very good duke. >Vhat's the difference between taxes and robbery, if it comes to that?"
"He's not stupid, Haben." Vossik looked worried. "It will have to be better than SiniavaЧ"
"That's my point. Siniava claimed a titleЧclaimed to be governing his landsЧbut we all saw what that meant in
Cha and Sibili. He didn't cut off trade entirely, as Alured has done on the Immer, noЧbut would any of us want to live under someone like him? I remember the faces in those cities, if you don't."
"But he fought SiniavaЧ"
"YesЧat the end. For a good reward, too. I'm not saying he's all bad, Vossik; I don't know. But so far he's done what any mercenary mightЧgone where the gold is. How will he govern? A man who thinks he's nobly born, and has been cheated of his birthrightЧwhat will he do when we reach the Immer ports?"
They found out at Immerdzan, where the Immer widened abruptly into a bay. It sheltered four ports: Immerdzan and Aliuna, across the river from each other, Ka-Immer, seaward of Immerdzan, and Seafang, high on the last rocky point of the bay on Aliuna's side. Seafang alone had not been controlled by Siniava in the past few years; it was more a pirates' lair than a port anyway. But Immerdzan, Ka-Immer, and Aliuna had been governed by Siniava's minions.
Immerdzan required no formal assault. It had never been fortified on the land side, beyond a wall hardly more than man-high with the simplest of gates. The army marched in without meeting any resistance. The streets were crowded and dirty; the air stank of things Paks had never smelled before. Paks got her first look at the bay, here roiled and murky from the Immer's output. The shore was cluttered with piers and wharves, with half-rotted pilings, the skeletons of boats, boats sinking, boats floating, new boats, spars, shreds of sail, nets hung from every available pole, and festooned on the houses. She saw small naked children, skinny as goats, diving and swimming around the boats. Most of them wore their hair in a single short braid, tied with bright bits of cloth.
Beyond the near-shore clutter, the bay lay wide and nearly empty under the hot afternoon sun. A few boats slid before the wind, their great triangular sails curved like wings. Paks stared at them, fascinated. One changed direction as she watched, the dark line of the hull shortening and lengthening again, now facing another way. Far in the distance she could see the high ground beyond the bay, and southward the water turned green, then blue, as the Immer's water merged with the open sea.
Around the Duke's troops, a noisy crowd had gatheredЧsquabbling, it seemed to Paks, in a language high-pitched and irritable. Children dashed back and forth, some still sleek and wet from the water, others grimy. Barefoot men in short trousers, their hair in a longer single braid, clustered around the boats; women in bright short skirts and striped stockings hung out of windows and crowded the doorways. One of Alured's captains called in the local language, and a sudden silence fell. Paks heard the water behind her, sucking and mumbling at the pilings, slurping. She shivered, wondering if the sea had a spirit. Did it hunger?
Alured's captain began reading from a scroll in his hand. Paks looked for ArcoTin and watched his face; surely he knew what was going on. He had no expression she could read. Now the announcement, whatever it was, was finished: Alured's captain spoke to the Duke, saluted, and mounted to ride away. The crowd was silent. When he rounded the corner, a low murmur passed through them. One man shouted, hoarsely. Paks looked for him, and saw two younger men shoving a graybearded one back. Another man near them called in accented Common:
"Who ofyou speaks to us?"
"I, do." The Duke's voice was calm as ever.
"YouЧyou are pirates?"
"No. What do you mean?"
"ThatЧthat manЧhe says is now our dukeЧhe is a pirate. You are his menЧyou are pirates."
"No." The Duke shook his head. Paks saw Arcolin give the others a hand signal, saw the signal passed from captains to sergeants. It was unneeded; they were all alert anyway. "We are his allies, not his men. He fought with us upriverЧagainst Siniava."
'THiat filth! The man spat. "Who are you, then, if you fight Siniava but also with pirates?"
"Duke Phelan, of Tsaia.'
"Tsaia? That's over the Dwarfmounts, all the way north! What do you here?"
"I have a mercenary company, that fights in Aarenis. SiniavaЧ" The Duke's voice thinned, but he did not go on, "We fought Siniava," he said finally. "He is dead. Alured of the forest has been- granted the Duchy of Immer, and as he aided us, so I am now aiding him."
"He is no duke!" yelled the man. "I don't know youЧI heard something maybe, but I don't know you. But that AluredЧhe is nothing but pirate, and pirate he will be. Siniava was bad, Barrandowea. knows that, but Alured! He killed my uncle, years back, out there in the bay, him and his filthy ship!"
"No matter," said the Duke. "He is the Duke of Immer now, and he rules this landЧincluding this city. I am here to keep order until his own officers take over."
The man spat again, and turned away. The Duke said nothing more to the crowd, but set the cohorts on guard along the waterfront, and had patrols in the streets leading to and from their area. All was quiet enough, that first day. Paks felt herself lucky to be stationed on the seawall. She could look down at the boats, swaying on the waves, and catch a breath of the light wind that blew off the water. Strange birds, gray and white with black-capped heads, and large red bills, hovered over the water, diving and lifting again.
It was the next day that the executions began. Paks heard the yells from the other side of the city, but before they could get excited, the captains explained what was going on.
"The Duke of Fall and the Duke of Immer are executing Siniava's agents." Arcolin's face was closed. "We are to keep order here, in case of riotingЧbut we don't expect any." In fact, nothing happened in their quarter. The men and women went about their work without looking at the soldiers, and the children scampered in and out of the water freely. But the noise from across the city did not quiet down, and in the evening Cracolnya's cohort was pulled out to join the Halverics in calming the disturbance. They returned in the morning, tired and grim; Paks did not hear the details until much later. But the Duke's Company marched out of Immerdzan the following day, and the bodies hung on the wall were eloquent enough.
In Ka-Immer, the word had arrived before they did. The gates were closed. With no trained troops for defense, and only the low walls, the assault lasted only a few hours. This time the entire population was herded into the market square next to the seawall. While the Halverics and Phelani guarded them, Alured's men searched the streets, house by house, bringing more and more to stand with the others. When they were done, Alured himself rode to die edge of the square. He pointed at a man among the others. His soldiers seized him, and dragged him out of the mob. Then two more, and another. Someone yelled, from across the square, and a squad of Alured's men shoved into the crowd, flailing them aside, to seize him as well. The first man had thrown himself down before Alured, sobbing. Alured shook his head, pointed. All of them were dragged to a rough framework of spars which Alured's troops had lashed together.
A ripple of sound ran through the crowd; die people crammed back against each other, the rear ranks backing almost into Pak's squad. She and the others linked shields, holding firm. She could hardly see over the crowd. Then the first of the men lifted into sight, stretched on ropes slung over the framework. Paks stiffened; her belly clenched. Another. Another. Soon they hung in a row, one by the feet and the others by their arms. Alured's men petted them with mud, stones, fish from the market. One of diem hung limp, another screamed thinly. Paks looked away, gulped back nausea. When her eyes slid sideways, they met Keri's, equally miserable. She did not see the end, when Alured himself ran a spear into each man. She felt, through the movement of the crowd, that an end had come, and looked up to see die bodies being lowered.
But it was not the end. Alured spoke, in diat strange language, gesturing fiercely. The crowd was still, unmov-tng; Paks could smell the fear and hatred of those nearest her. He finished with a question: Paks recognized die tone of voice, the outflung arm, the pause, waiting for an answer. It came as a dead fish, flung from somewhere in the crowd, that came near to its mark. His face darkened. Paks could not hear what he said, but his own soldiers fanned out again, coming at the crowd.
Before they reached it, the crowd erupted into sound and action. Jammed as they were against a thin line of Phelani and Halverics holding the three landward sides of the market, they somehow managed to turn and move at once. PaksJs squad was forced back, by that immense pressure. They could hear nothing but the screams and bellows of the crowd; they had been ordered to guard, not attack. But they were being overwhelmed. Most of the people had no weapons; their weapon was simply numbers. Like Paks, they were reluctant to strike unarmed men and womenЧbut equally, they did not want to be overrun.
Behind, in the streets that led to the market, Paks could hear other troops coming, and shouted commands that were but pebbles of noise against the stone wall around them. She tried to stay in contact with the others, tried to fend off the crowd with the flat of her sword, but the pressure was against them all. A man grabbed at her weapon, screaming at her; she raised it, and he hit her, hard, under the arm. Almost in reflex, Paks thrust, running the sword into his body. He fell under a storm of feet, that kept coming at her. She fended them off as best she could, pressing close to the rest of the squad as they tried to keep together and keep on their feet.
A gap opened between them and the next squad; the crowd poured through, still bellowing. Paks was slammed back into the building behind her; she could feel somethingЧa window ledge, she supposedЧsticking into her back. Faces heaved in front of her, all screaming; hands waved, grabbed at her weapon. She fought them off, panting. She had no time to look for Stammel or Arcolin; she could hear nothing now but the crowd. They had broken through the ring in many places, now, and streamed away from the market, lurching and falling in their panic. A child stumbled into her and fell, grabbing at her tunic as he went down, screaming shrilly. Paks had no hand to spare for him, and he disappeared under the hurrying feet.
By the time she could move again, most of the crowd was gone. She could see Alured riding behind his soldiers as they tried to stop those in the rear. She finally saw Arcolin, and then Stammel, beyond the tossing heads. Then she could hear them. The cohort reformed, joined the others, and was sent in pursuit of the fugitives. But by sundown, barely a fifth had been retaken, mostly women and children too weak to run far, or too frightened. Paks, still shaken by the morning's events, was upset still more by the treatment of those she helped recapture. Alured was determined that none of Siniava's sympathizers would survive, and that all would acknowledge his rank and rule. To this end, he intended, as he explained to Phelan in front of the troops, to frighten the citizens into submission.
Paks expected the Duke to argue, but he said nothing. He had hardly seemed to smile since Siniava's death, and since reaching the coast had spent hours looking seaward. She did not knowЧnone of them knewЧwhat was troubling him. But more and more Paks felt that she could not live with what was troubling her. The looks of fear and loathing turned on themЧthe muttered insults, clear enough even in a foreign tongueЧthe contempt of Alured's troops, when the Phelani would not join them in "play," which to them meant tormenting some poor citizenЧall this seemed to curdle her belly until she could hardly eat, and slept but little, waking from troubled dreams.