"H. Beam Piper - The Space Viking" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

"You lied all the time. You're as bad as the rest of them, all scheming and
plotting against me, betraying me. I know what it's about; you all want to
cheat me of my rights, and keep my usurping uncle on the ducal throne. And
you, you falsehearted harlotтАЮyou're the worst of them all!"

Sir Nevil Ormm caught his shoulder and spun him around, propelling him toward
the escalators. Dunnan struggled, screaming inarticulately like a wounded
wolf. Ormm was cursing furiously.

"You two!" he shouted. "Help me, here. Get hold of him."

Dunnan was still howling as they forced him onto the escalator, the backs of
the two retainers' cloaks, badged with the Dunnan crescent, light blue on
black, hiding him. After a little, an aircar with the blue crescent blazonry
lifted and sped away.

"Lucas, he's crazy," Sesar Karvall was insisting. "Elaine hasn't spoken fifty
words to him since he came back from his last voyage."

Lucas laughed and put a hand on Karvall's shoulder. "I know that, Sesar. You
don't think, do you, that I need assurance of it?"

"Crazy, I'll say he's crazy," Rovard Grauffis put in. "Did you hear what he
said about his rights? Wait till his Grace hears about that."

"Does he lay claim to the ducal throne, Sir Rovard?" Otto Harkaman asked,
sharply and seriously.

"Oh, be claims that his mother was born a year and a half before Duke Angus
and the true date of her birth falsified to give Angus the succession. Why,
his present Grace was three years old when she was born. I was old Duke
Fergus' squire; I carried Angus on my shoulder when Andray Dunnan's mother was


file:///F|/rah/H.%20Beam%20Piper/Beam,%20Piper%20H%20-%20Space%20Viking.txt (10 of 130) [2/4/03 10:07:03 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/H.%20Beam%20Piper/Beam,%20Piper%20H%20-%20Space%20Viking.txt

presented to the lords and barons the day after she was born."

"Of course he's crazy," Alex Gorram agreed. "I don't

18

know why the Duke doesn't have him put under psychiatric treatment."

"I'd put him under treatment," Harkaman said, drawing a finger across under
his beard. "Crazy men who pretend to thrones are bombs that ought to be
deactivated, before they blow things up."

"We couldn't do that," Grauffis said. "After all, he's Duke Angus' nephew."