"01 - Sword Dancer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

else. Gods of valhail, gods of hoolies, but what a breath of fresh air the woman
was!
What she was doing in this little dragtail cantina I have no idea, but I didn't
question the benevolent, generous fate that brought her within range. I simply
blessed it and decided then and there that no matter who it was she was looking
for, I'd take his place.
I watched in appreciation (sighing just a bit) as she turned to look over the
room. So did every other male in the place. It isn't often you get to look on
beauty so fresh and unspoiled, not when you're stuck in a dragtail town like...
Hoolies, I couldn't even remember its name.
Ruth and Numa watched her too, but their appreciation was tempered by another
emotion entirely--called jealousy.
Numa tapped me on one side of the face, trying to get my attention. At first I
shook her off, still watching the blonde, but when Numa started to dig in her
nails, I gave her my second-best sandtiger glare. It usually works and saves me
the trouble of using my best sandtiger glare, which I save for special
(generally deadly) occasions. I learned very early in my career that my green
eyes--the same color as those in a sandtiger's head--often intimidate those of a
weaker constitution. No man scoffs at a weapon so close to hand; I certainly
don't. And so I refined the technique until I had it perfected, and I usually
got a kick out of the reactions to it.
Numa whimpered a little; Ruth smiled. Basically, the two girls are the best of
enemies. Being the only women in the cantina, quite often they fight over new
blood--dusty and dirty and stinking of the Punja, more often than not, but still
new. That was unique enough in the stuffy adobe cantina whose walls had once
boasted murals of crimson, carnelian, and lime. The colors--like the girls--had
faded after years of abuse and nightly coatings of spewed or spilled wine, ale,
aqivi... and all the other poisons.
My blood was the newest in town (newly bathed, too), but rather than sentence
them to a catfight I'd taken on both of them. They seemed content enough with
sharing me, and this way I kept peace in a very tiny cantina. A man does not
make enemies of any woman when he is stuck in a boring, suffocating town that
has nothing to offer except two cantina girls who nightly (and daily) sell their
virtue. Hoolies, there isn't anything else to do. For them or me.
Having put Numa in her place (and wondering if I could still keep the peace
between the two of them), I became aware of the presence newly arrived at my
table. I glanced up and found those two blue eyes fixed on me in a direct,
attentive stare that convinced me instantly I should change the errors of my
ways, whatever they might be. I'd even make some up, just so I could change
them. (Hoolies, what man wouldn't with her looking at him?)
Even as she halted at my table, some of the men in the cantina murmured
suggestions (hardly questions) as to the status of her virtue. I wasn't much
surprised, since she lacked a modesty veil and the sweet-faced reticence of most
of the Southron women (unless, of course, they were cantina girls, like Ruth and
Numa, or free-wives, who married outlanders and gave up Southron customs.)
This one didn't strike me as a cantina girl. She didn't strike me as a free-wife
either, being a bit too independent even for one of them. She didn't strike me
as much of anything except a beautiful woman. But she sure seemed bent on
something, and that something was more than a simple assignation.
"Sandtiger?" Her voice was husky, low-pitched; the accent was definitely