"Mickey Zucker Reichert - Renshai 03 - Child Of Thunder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

it. She was, after all, only a woman and, also, half his size. She twisted her gaze to the spectators,
counting them to expend nervous energy. It was not her way to stand mute in the presence of injustice;
her need for action had committed her to this trial that had proven little more than a recitation of her
crimes. As an Eastland woman, she had no right to a defense, and the proceedings in the women's court
were a parody of justice.



Khitajrah's gaze played over the seated rows of the audience. She counted eighteen, all men, and
weaponless as the court law specified. Her son, Bahmyr, sat along one aisle, fidgeting helplessly. At
twenty-three, he already sported the heavy frame and hard musculature of his father. Ebony hair fringed a
handsome face, friendly despite growing up amid the cold evil of the Eastern culture. He was the last of
Khitajrah's children. Her other two sons, one older and one younger, had died in the Great War, along
with their father, Harrsha, who had served as one of two high lieutenants to King Siderin.



The other seventeen spectators included family, curious neighbors, and soldiers. Among the latter,
Khitajrah recognized at least two who had placed the blame for the defeat of the Eastern army on her
late husband. That accusation, at least, seemed ludicrous. Khitajrah understood the need for these
broken veterans to find a scapegoat, to blame the hundreds of casualties on a specific man whom they
could curse and malign. As the chosen of the Eastlands' one god, General-King Siderin must always
remain a hero, though he had led his followers and himself to their deaths. But Harrsha had been Siderin's
last surviving high commander, and the Western warrior who had killed him on the battlefield was a
woman.



A woman. Khitajrah pursed her lips in a tense frown, torn by the irony. She had fought for the dignity
and worth of women for as long as she could remember: comforting those beaten, lending her strength to
the overburdened, and stealing food and medication where needed. Now, at forty-three years old, she
would pay the price for a lifetime of assisting her sisters and decades of walking the delicate boundaries
of the law. Now that her cause finally stood a chance, she would fall in defeat, with no one to continue
her work. The war had left women outnumbering men by three to one, and the Eastlands needed to use
the guile and competence of their women, as well as their bodies, to keep the realm from lapsing into
decay. The overtaxed farm fields could scarcely feed the populace, even with their numbers whittled by
war.



The central man of the tribunal cleared his throat. Khitajrah returned her attention to them, her gaze
sweeping briefly over the only armed men in the courtroom. Two burly soldiers guarded the door.
Another stood, braced and watchful, between the tribunal and the crowd. The last remained at
Khitajrah's right hand, alert to her every movement.
 The central man rose. "Friends. Freemen. It is the opinion of this court that this woman ... this
frichen-karboh ..." He paused on the word, one of the ugliest in the Eastern language. Literally, it
translated to "manless woman, past usefulness," a derogatory term used for widows. In the East, violent
crime and a constant life of labor saw to it that a woman rarely outlasted her husband. When he died first,
it was expected that she, and her unattached female children, would suicide on his pyre. "... this one
called Khita is guilty of theft, of inciting women, and of treason in the eyes of the one god, Sheriva."