"Jerry Pournelle & Roland Green - Janissaries 3 - Storms of Victory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

"Touch anything?"
Echaino shuddered. "No, my lord."
"Good man." Mason knelt by the body and took its wrist in his hand. He
moved the dead arm back and forth. "Not dead long," he muttered. He poked
at the body for a moment and stood. "How many men have you got with
you?"
Morrone's lips tightened. That tone of command was not the proper way to
address a Companion to the Wanax Ganton. Morrone let it pass. He had seen
enough of the starmen and their peremptory ways. Strangely effective ways.
There might yet be a reckoning over the place of the starmen in Drantos, but
this was not the time for it.
"Twelve Guardsmen and three of my own men-at-arms. You have brought
nine. I fear we shall need more, if we are to search the Outer Bailey without
making each searching party too small to defend itself."
Mason nodded. "Right." He turned to one of his men. "Lugh, take a message
to Lieutenant Brionn. The ready platoon is to turn out in full kit and report to
Lord Morrone at Hestia's Fountain. Tell them to move quietly, and tell anyone
who sees them that this is a drill."
"Sir!" Lugh clicked his heels and hurried off. Morrone knew that Brionn
would obey, for all that he was the son of a knight and his orders came to him
by the son of a carpenter. A year ago Mason might have had to go himself to
bring the platoon, but much had changed in that year. For the better or for the
worse?
It couldn't matter. The urgent need was for a thorough search. That wouldn't
be easy. Edron was the royal seat of Drantos, but it had never been planned as
such. What had begun as a fortress tower had grown into a full castle, then
into a city. The Outer Bailey was no open courtyard with a few buildings set
against the walls, but part of the city of Edron itself, walled off by the Wanax
Ganton's great-grandfather to provide more quarters for his men-at-arms,
servants, and (so the tales ran) mistresses. Except for one broad street leading
from the Outer Gate to the Great North Gate of the
castle itself, the Outer Bailey was as much a warren as any part of the city
outside the walls.
In war the defenders would fire this area and retreat behind the flames to the
castle. That was hardly the answer here, though Morrone was tempted. "What
plot is afoot?" he asked.
Mason chuckled. "Must be fifty of them, wouldn't you say, my lord?"
"True enough." The royal wedding of Wanax Ganton and the Roman Lady
Octavia Caesar had drawn lords, Senators, merchants, barons, knights,
soldiers, and wealthy magnates from a dozen lands, half of them at war or
nearly so with each other.
"We'll be until the True Sun rises searching this lot," Mason said. "Who's out
here?"
Morrone shrugged. "Am I a clerk? Those of rank who could not find room
inside. Lords, retainers. Clergy. Great ones. Any might be the target of a
plot." Or be plotters themselves. "Wanax Ganton will not care to have his
guests turned out on his last night unwed. Nor, I think, will Caesar care for the
complaints of his Senators."
"Yeah. It's a problem. Got any suggestions?"
Morrone looked up at the sky, but Yatar Dayfather did not appear with an