"Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 07 - A Wizard In Midgard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

her wrists. She screamed and kicked, then managed to lever herself up enough to
bite at his hands.
He dropped her with an oath, but one of the other over- . seers caught her
wrists and another her ankles.
Kawsa nursed his bitten hand, growling, "Take her out and tie her to the post."
Then he kicked a very small boy nearby and said, "Run and fetch the steward."
Eyes huge with fear, the boy ran out the door. ' "Everyone out!" Kawsa bellowed.
"All of you! It's been too long since you watched what happens to a slave who
disobeys an overseer!"
They moved with the speed of fear, for all the overseers were red with anger and
watching closely for an excuse. They gathered around the whipping post as Kawsa
tied Greta's wrists to it. She screamed and fought, of course, and another
overseer had to hold her in place while Kawsa bound the rope tight.
As they finished, Steward Wulfsson came up. He was a thick, beefy man in early
middle age with lowering brows and a fleshy face. "What's the matter, Kawsa?"
"This woman Greta, your lordship." Kawsa was breathing hard from binding the
woman. "She refused an order, she argued."
"He had me only three days ago!" Greta protested. "Not so ..."
Wulfsson stepped up and, quite methodically, backhanded her across the mouth. "I
don't care what the order is or what your reasons-you don't refuse one of my
overseersl It's the same as refusing me." He looked her up and down, and his eye
glinted. "Who knows? I may call for you myself, one of these nights." Then he
barked to Kawsa, "Bare her back and give me the whip!"
What followed was as ugly as anything Gar had seen, but he couldn't look away,
because the overseers paced along the semi-circle of slaves, snarling, "Look,
damn your hides! If one of you tries to close your eyes, we'll beat the lot of
you!"
The overseers made lewd comments as they tore Greta's tunic open along the back,
and Wulfsson plied the lash himself, eyes glinting hotter with every scream. Gar
warred within himself, weighing Greta's pain against the freedom he might bring
the whole country if he stayed undercover long enough to learn the bosses'
weaknesses. He had to do something, so he tried to pull the cat-of-nine-tails
short with each stroke, but it wouldn't obey his thoughts. In desperation, he
tried to make the knots at Greta's wrists untie themselves, but they barely
twitched. His stomach sank as he realized the blow to his head had indeed done
as much damage as he had feared. He could only hope it would heal, and quickly,
for he was trapped here until it did.
When the whipping was done, Wulfsson tossed the whip back to Kawsa. "Here. Tell
me when she's recovered enough. Back to finish my dinner, now."
He stalked away, and the overseers stepped aside to let the women slaves untie
poor Greta and carry her sobbing into the barracks. The slaves turned and filed
back inside, a silent, shaken crew.
"Rega!" Kawsa snapped.
The small woman stopped in her tracks and turned slowly to look up at the
overseer with utter dread. "Yes, sir?"
"Into the barn and up to the hayloft with you, quickly!" Rega turned away toward
the huge dark outbuilding with its lowing of cattle, her steps dragging.
Gar felt outrage and fury, the more bitter because he could do nothing to stop
it. He went on in and sat down on his pallet. From farther down the darkened
room, he could hear Greta's voice, thick with sobs, saying fiercely, "I don't