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

Garvi Denten might well want to put the gamekeeper in his place by ad-dressing him formally when he
got impertinent. Which probably meant that he had always served somebody who didn't care for him, or
who he suspected didn't care for him.
Arefai had finished removing his sandals, and stood barefoot in his snowy hunting tunic and the silk
pantaloons that were shirred tight at knee and ankles, but blousy above and below. They rippled in the
wind, like the grasses at his feet.
He slapped his hands together. "The hunt, good Garvi Denten, the hunt. What are we hunting today?"
Garvi Denten bowed again. "Lord Arefai specified some light hunting, so I thought perhaps some
quail, a fish or two, and then game of some sort." He eyed the spears leaning up against the wall of the
shelter. "Boar might be possible, butтАФ"
"One would hardly call boar hunting light, eh?" Arefai nodded. He accepted a short bow and a bundle
of perhaps half a dozen arrows, the bundle secured with two twists of silver wire, while Garvi Denten
belted a silver-trimmed quiver about his waist.
I unlaced my own sandals and tossed them aside as Deroy Rawn handed me a bow, bundle, and
quiver, and awkwardly belted the quiver around me. What I was going to be able to do with all this was
not exactly clear to me. I'd never so much as held a bow in my hands, and sus-pected that there was
some serious sleight to its use.
Arefai set one end of his bow between his ankles and levered it against the inside of his knee to bend
it into a curve, snapping the bowstring into place as he did.
That appeared easier to do than it was. When I tried it, the end slipped out and sent the bow tumbling
to the grass.
With a superior smirk, Deroy Rawn strung the bow and handed it to me. "Good hunting, Kami
Dan'Shir," he said.
Arefai was watching me impatiently; we set off.
The hunting trail, barely wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side, was a stone footpath
leading off down the slope toward where the carefully manicured brush broke on freshly scythed grass.
Each stone, individually shaped and polished to a gentle convexity, was smooth and damp beneath my
feet, although it had not rained the night before.
I could almost see the huntsmen with their pails and brushes, cleaning it for the delectation of Arefai's
feet.
The trail bent, then straightened. Above, huge elms tow-ered, their arcing branches turning the path
into a leafy tunnel of dark green. Off in the distance, a hairy owl tarooed, and something small scampered
from branch to branch. I would have thought that a hunt ought to be con-ducted in silenceтАФmy own
experience of walking the roads of D'Shai suggests that animals stay away from peo-ple making
noiseтАФbut Arefai wanted to talk. It was his chance to play teacher, I suppose.
"It's a good idea to travel with an arrow nocked, butтАФ" he stopped as he looked over at me. "No,
no, not the big brpadhead; use the half-moon arrow. That's the right one for quail."
He selected an arrow for me and helped me fit it to my bowstring, then took up his own bow and a
similar arrow; it was tipped with a half-moon of sharpened steel, edged like the edge of a sword, but thin
and light.
Ahead, the path widened as it opened on a grassy meadow that angled down to the pond. The flat
stones cir-cled the edge of the pond, vanishing again into a leafy green tunnel.
A waterwalker stood on one leg on one bank, its long, pointed bill in profile, as though it was looking
over its left wing. My own suspicion, that one of its wide eyes
watched us while the other looked for prey, was quickly confirmed when it blurred into motion. Its
feet slapped in an impossibly rapid tattoo first against the muddy bank, and then against the surface of the
water as it scurried across the pond, not pausing for a moment in its mad dash as it dipped its beak, then
straightened, a wriggling fish momentarily in its grip. It tossed the fish high, and snapped it down before it
reached the other side of the pond, only to stumble comically on the bank.
I'd seen it happen before and I saw it again: perhaps a dozen other waterwalkers rose from the