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

Council ruled all year round, so the kings had to leave the day-to-day running
of their kingdoms to their barons while they themselves lived in the capital.
The barons, in turn, divided their holdings into twenty farms, each run by a
steward.
Once a year, all the barons gathered in the capital for the Allthing, a
legislative body that established policies for the Council to execute during the
next year, and decided legal cases between noblemen.
Gar was amazed that there was even that much division of power, and wondered how
it came to be-but Wulfsson's mind seemed to be curiously empty of history, and
historically empty of curiousity.
His concussion healed quickly, but it still took days-and during those days, Gar
saw sights he would never forget. Overseers prodded him whenever he didn't move
fast enough to please them, which happened whenever they were bored. He talked
back once, and a dozen overseers descended on him to beat him with sticks and
iron-shod prods; reading their minds as he tried to block their blows, Gar
realized they had been waiting for the new slave to try to stand up for himself.
Later in the day, he saw a man whipped for refusing to beat a woman when the
overseers commanded it. That evening, Kawsa ordered Gar to take a load of wood
up to the steward's house, and Gar saw that the house staff, old male slaves and
middle-aged women, were all hopeless, apathetic people who had only one emotion
left-fear. The table servants had decent clothing; everyone else wore the same
rags as the field hands.
By the end of the week, Gar decided he'd seen enough to be sure this regime had
to be torn down, and had a notion that he himself would sponsor a tribunal for
crimes committed under its aegis. He tested his powers, first on the weeds he
was hoeing, and when the first yanked itself out of the ground, he felt a
soaring jubilation. A few minutes later, he thought sleepy thoughts at Kawsa,
and was rewarded with a series of yawns. That evening, when a skinny old man had
to wrestle an armload of wood up to the steward's house, Gar pushed the wood
with his mind, and saw the man straighten in surprise, then walk with a lighter
step all the way to the back door. Gar smiled, knowing his range might not be as
far as it had been, but was definitely far enough. He searched Kawsa's memories
and found where his pack had-been stored.
After dark, he tested his dexterity by thinking a kink into a particular tube in
Kawsa's anatomy, and was rewarded by hearing a curse from the hayloft across the
yard. There was also the sound of a slap, unfortunately, but only one, and a few
minutes later, Kawsa came storming out of the barn, face red with fury. The
woman who had been his night's choice came out soon after, dazed by her escape.
Gar lay on his pallet, tense with excitement and anticipation. His brain was
healed, and he was ready.
The planet had three moons, though none was as bright as Terra's. When all three
were in the sky together, they gave quite a bit of light indeed. Gar had already
pegged the hour of the first one's rising, and slipped out in the full darkness
of early night, while only the stars held the sky. The overseer on watch wasn't
Kawsa, unfortunately, but Gar had his grudges with all of them by now, so any
one would do. As the man crossed the barnyard, Gar willed him to look away from
the shadow where the giant crouched, then thought of sleep, of the softness of a
bed, of its warmth and coziness, of how wonderful it would feel to nod off. . .
.
He jerked his head upright; it had been a long day, and his spell was working on