"S. M. Stirling - Draka 05 - Drakas!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

got more gold than Callifornea & dimons toтАФ"

He never found the man who wrote the letter; his inquiries, around the gold-field settlements of eastern
Archona, drew only shrugs. At first he sought the man to thank him. Later he thought more in terms of
killing the well-meaning fool.

The Dominion of Drakia did indeed possess a wealth of gold and diamonds; but, as new arrivals quickly
learned, Drakia was no California. All the major fields were firmly in the hands of big combines, the
mines big elaborate affairs, worked by armies of slaves.

(Bondservants, the Drakia insisted on calling them, claiming that slavery was extinct and even illegal now.
But that was sheer sophistry; the poor devils were slaves, whatever the official terminology, as much as
any character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's.)

There was little room here for the romantic figure of the lone prospector. A few remained in the remoter
areasтАФsuch as that awful Namib Desert, over on the southwest coast, that made the Kalahari look like
the Garden of EdenтАФbut their day was rapidly coming to an end.

And anyway, despite all that silliness in the Black Hills, the truth was that George Custer knew virtually
nothing about gold or mining; soldiering was the only trade he had ever studied.

Very well, then, he would soldier here. But that idea too came up short against Drakian reality. The
Dominion's legions did indeed contain many former Americans, but almost all were ex-Confederates. A
man who had fought on the antislavery side, in what was still regarded here as an Abolitionist war, was
regarded with grave suspicion by the Drakian command; and a onetime Yankee officer who had been
convicted of cowardice, in a campaign against native savages, simply need not apply.
 In the end it was Jeb Stuart, of all people (now Strategos Stuart of the Third Legion; the Drakians had
easily recognized at least one genius), who stepped in to help. Still the perfect Southern knight, extending
a magnanimous hand to a fallen former adversary:

"I am mortified, sir." It came out "Ah am mo'tifahd, suh," it would take more than a decade or so of
Drakian residence to obliterate that Virginia drawl. "Even to make such an offer, to a man of your
abilityтАФI hope you will not take offense, General Custer, at my temerity."

"Temerity was always your long suit, General Stuart."

"Why, I appreciate that, sir, coming from a man whose audacity I once had all too good cause to know."
Smiling, stroking the ends of the long mustache; most of the American immigrants, Custer included, got
rid of their whiskers and long hair in the African heat, but count on Stuart to put style above mere
comfort. "But as I was saying, the Mounted PoliceтАФ"

"They're offering me a job as a policeman?"

"Technically, yes. But then the soldier often has to serve as a policeman. After all, our former duties
against the Indians could be considered in the nature of police work, could they not?" Stuart smiled again.
"And the Mounted Police are practically a military organization in most respects. True, the men are
sometimes a trifle rough, but . . . . "

***