"John Maddox Roberts - Stormlands 02- The Black Shield" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts John Maddox)

The royal residence was a handsome structure of rammed earth and thatch, with skylights and windows
of colorful glass, imported at great cost. This last was an extravagance Hael deemed justified for the
impression it made on visiting chiefs. A southern or western king would have considered the building
modest even for a royal hunting lodge, but Hael governed an outdoor people who were far more
impressed by the number and ferocity of the men who followed him, and by his vast herds.

He dismounted and strode up to the broad verandah that encircled the residence. Envoys and
messengers bowed him inside and he greeted each one courteously. A man wearing the livery of a Nevan
messenger came forward, presenting a scroll-box.

"Letters from His Majesty and your other friends in Neva, King Hael," the man said. "Royal gifts will
arrive later, by caravan."

"My thanks to your royal master," Hael said.

6 John Maddox Roberts

"I think he will be pleased with the gifts I have selected for him. Merchant Shong will bear them this year,
as usual."

The messenger bowed his way out and the king handed the box to a Byalla steward, to be perused later,
at leisure. He braced himself for a long day of giving audience, deciding which merchants should have
which trading privileges, which breeding stock should be sent as gifts to the neighboring kings. The
southern kings, as usual, pestered him to send some of his warriors to serve in their armies as irregulars.
They offered handsome pay, but Hael put them off. He did not wish his young men to get in the habit of
serving other kings.

Among the visitors were priests and wandering wise men of various religions. Some of these were spies
as well, but most merely wanted a close look at this remarkable king who was also said to be a sort of
priest or shaman. As with the merchants, Hael guaranteed the safety of all such travelers within his
territory, although he usually found their preachings to be a mere nuisance. Long before, however, he had
learned that these men often had traveled widely and liked nothing better than to talk about it. They could
be veritable mines of information about foreign lands. Unlike merchants, the holy men rarely expected to
be paid for any morsels of information they delivered. In consequence, Hael treated them with unfailing
courtesy.

This group paid him elaborate formalities, using the ritualistic forms to hide their astonishment. Hael was
used to that look. Priest or chief, merchant or warrior, none of them could quite believe that King Hael,
who had come out

THE BLACK SHIELDS 7

of nowhere to create a vast kingdom from primitive tribes, who had established sophisticated diplomatic
and trade relations with half the world, who had built a mobile army such as the world had never seen,
was a young man still in his twenties.
Hael saw a dusty Matwa subchief enter the doorway and beckoned him to approach. "Any word from
Broadleaf ?" This was the queen's home village.

"Not when I left two days ago," the man reported. "The old woman guards the house like a longneck."