"Tamora Pierce - Protector Of The Small 3 - Squire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

of a fight. And they'd have shouted. We were told everyone was abed when the raiders got into the
houses." Something in the mud caught her eye: a doll, half-buried in muck She picked it up and began to
clean it with a handkerchief. "Setting fires after they stole, that's mischief, or settling old scores," she
remarked. Her hands trembled with rage. The waste and cowardice - robbing their own people in the
middle of the night! - had to be punished. "They took every animal they could sell. People are saying they
cleaned out the valuables before they set their fires. And if folk here recognized the humans with the
centaurs, they're keeping quiet."
"They'd have to, wouldn't they?" Raoul asked. "Villages like this, cut off from most of the world,
everyone's related. A raider could be an uncle, a cousin, a brother."
Kel nodded, cleaning the doll as people reported to Raoul and the squad bound for the palace left.
This was the lowest kind of betrayal, for kinsmen to steal what little people had. She could not
understand those who liked romantic songs of highwaymen and pirates. Anyone who took poor people's
life savings was not worth a song.
The centaurs were just as bad. They'd been given homes after they had sworn to heed the realm's
laws. Now they were robbing those who had taken them in.
She waited until Raoul had finished talking with his squad leaders before she asked, "My lord?"
Raoul looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
"They won't stay local, will they?" she asked. The doll was as clean as she could get it. Kel thrust it
into her belt. "They took all they could move. They're on the run, looking for a place to hole up or
another village to rob."
 "Absolutely," her knight-master replied. "We've got serious work ahead. Don't worry, though. With
help, we'll bring these muck suckers to bay."
The local centaurs arrived. Kel watched the introductions, happy not to deal with these creatures,
particularly the centaur chief, Graystreak. His black-and-gray hair was twined and oiled into ringlets, a
style she disliked. Graystreak wore a dirty wrap-around shirt with a tangle of ribbons, beads, and chains
around his neck, wrists, and pasterns, and braided in his tail. Only the belt at his waist was unornamented
by anything but weapons. His human parts were those of a fair-skinned man in his fifties; his horse parts
were blue roan.
Suddenly the chief broke off greeting Lord Raoul to approach Kel. He walked around her as if she
were a filly for his inspection, ignoring Jump's low growl. On his second circuit the centaur was smiling.
"A female. A strong one, not a pitiful two-legger stick girl," he commented. "You will breed easily,
perhaps even bear sons of my kind." His voice slid over Kel like oil.
She swallowed hard. Keeping her face Yamani-blank, she imagined Graystreak put to dray horse
work in the northern mines.
The sparrows leaped from their perch in a nearby tree to dart shrieking at the centaur. Gray-streak
backed up, trying to shield his face. Jump advanced on him, hackles up, snarling.
"Jump, enough," ordered Raoul, coming over.
The dog shook his head.
"I need to talk to him. You aren't helping," the knight told the dog.
Jump sighed. He walked away, frequently glancing over his shoulder as if to say, "I have to let him
go?"
"This is unnatural," Graystreak snapped, still warding off sparrows. No matter how quickly he swatted,
he never touched them. "Take these things away!"
"It's rude to single out the squire and ignore the knight," Raoul said politely. "I didn't give you
permission to address her. Kel, call off the birds."
Without a word from Kel the birds flew to her. Crown and Freckle perched on her shoulders. The rest
lined up on a branch.
Graystreak looked at Raoul. "I will give three slaves for her," he announced. "Two more if she breeds
successfully within a year."
Kel stiffened. Slaves? There were no slaves in Tortall.