"Joel Rosenberg - Hour of the Octopus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

as hard to discover the import of supposedly minor events as it is important to know the significance of
major ones.
"Lord Arefai bids you join him at breakfast."
Arguably, for Lord Arefai to have sent a member of his personal guard to wake even a lesser noble,
much less a newly made bourgeois, was a signal honor. Unarguably, an invitation to join Arefai at
breakfast was a great favor, no matter what it felt like, and to have the favor delivered so gentlyтАж
The standard way to wake a member of a lower class would be to send a servitor to kick me awake,
or a soldier to poke a spear at my rumpled blankets. Sending Bek De Bran to shake me awake was a
decided favor, given my status.
I tried to voice my gratitude.
"Mrph," I said.
I was rewarded by a kick.
A kazuh Warrior would have come awake at the first touch, his sword in his hand, ready to block,
parry, or at-tack. A kazuh Acrobat like my father would have already rolled to his feet or tumbled to a
one-armed handstand.
I held up a hand. "Please be easy, Lord Bek De Bran," I said. "I wake."
I sat up on my sleeping pallet, rubbing at my eyes, then
tossed the blankets aside and went to the wardrobe for some clothes. My head and eyes were so
filled with sleep and muzziness that I didn't stop to marvel at it. It's hard for me to marvel at much in the
hour of the dragon, the hour before dawn.
I didn't take the kick as a personal affront, although the thought of juggling his internal organs had
appeal. A bour-geois can afford to be thin of skin only around middle class and peasants; cultivating a
leathery exterior is a ne-cessity if you're going to spend your time around nobility, and as a former
peasant, I'd long since taken up the habit.
Not that there was anything particularly noble about the hulking creature looming above me in the
gray murk that was broken only by the flickering light of the lantern he had hung on the wall in my
workshop.
Bek De Bran was arrayed in full warrior's garb, from the twin peaks of the lacquered steel helmet that
topped his head, to the reticulated bone armor that covered his shoulders and chest, down to the skirt of
leather straps that hung about his thick waist, partly covering the kneezers and greaves, and the
brass-pointed boots on his feet. His armor's finger joints clicked like dice to keep time against the shaft of
his spear as he hummed a simple soldier's jig.
It seemed to me to that he wore a lot more gear than a warrior should need to go wake up a dan'shir,
but I didn't mention that. For one thing, most of them seem to like dressing up in their outfits almost as
much as they like singing, or beating members of the lower classes. But mainly, it's that most of them
seem to like beating mem-bers of the lower classes.
I stepped into my trousersтАФboth feet at once, the way an acrobat dressesтАФthen pulled a nappy
cotton tunic over my head. I belted it tightly across my waist with a broad black sash.
He shifted his right hand to his spear, and idly poked at me with its rounded butt end.
"Be quicker, whether it pleases you or not. The hunt awaits Lord Arefai, and Lord Arefai awaits
you." Typical
of a member of our beloved ruling class to be impatient to start a morning of killing things.
"Shoes," I said. "I need shoes."
"Just be quick about it."
The donjon was quiet in the predawn light as we padded (well, / padded; Bek De Bran clomped and
clicked and clacked) down the corridor, past a hallstand where a Klen vase sat, filled with an
arrangement of wildflowers, a clas-sic concentric arrangement of thorny, blood-red bantam roses
surrounding an explosion of yellow daisies. As we passed, when my body blocked his view, I snatched
one of the roses and tucked it into my belt, pricking my thumb on one of its sharp thorns.
As usual, my timing was faulty. Just at that moment, Lord Crosta Natthan rounded a corner.