"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 4 - Book of Silence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

tedious or boring.
The other humans of the village might have been bored, but Garth ignored
them entirely. They, in turn, avoided him for the most part. They could not
forget that it was Garth who had murdered the old Baron some thirty months
earlier, Garth who had led a company of overmen in the sacking and burning of
the village. Men, women, and children had died. All the Baron's guardsmen had
perished except the disgraced Saram, who had been removed from the guard for
refusing to kill Garth in a previous confrontation. It had been this
elimination of all other candidates, rather than any real qualifications for
the job, that had made Saram the new Baron of Skelleth.
Galt had gradually been accepted and forgiven; his part in the battle
had been small, and his trader's expertise had so benefited the village since
its reconstruction that he was now something of a hero. Garth, however,
remained an outcast.
At first there had been others among the surviving overmen who had
chosen to stay in Skelleth after its destruction, and even after the
rebuilding had been completed, but they had gradually drifted away with the
passing months. Some had returned home to the Northern Waste and been pardoned
for their part in the attack, though the Council steadfastly refused to pardon
Galt and Garth, the two supposed leaders. A few had gone to explore the Yprian
Coast and had not returned. One had been sent a special envoy to the court of
the High King at Kholis, whom Skelleth's government still recognized as the
rightful lord of all Eramma.
At one point there had been talk of using the overmen as the nucleus of
a new company of guardsmen, but nothing had come of it; Skelleth had no
military at all at present, save for the handful of warbeasts that the overmen
had brought. The great animals were now tended by a special contingent of the
Baron's staff, an entirely human contingent. Garth believed this to be the
first time in history that warbeasts had been under human care.
He had considered demanding that he be put in charge of the creatures,
on the grounds that it was not fitting for warbeasts to be tended by mere men
and women, but he had never actually done so. He had feared that he would be
turned down, as he had been turned down for every other duty in Skelleth. To
be refused a position as a keeper of beasts would be too much for his pride;
he preferred not to risk it. There had been enough blows to his self-esteem
already.
The aversion to his presence that the townspeople displayed did not
bother him; he was accustomed to it, could understand it, and furthermore
cared very little for the opinions of most humans. There were, however, other
matters.
His three wives, one by one, had come to Skelleth to see him, once the
City Council had revoked his chief wife Kyrith's house arrest, imposed for her
part in the sacking of Skelleth. Each had come, but each had refused to give
up her home in Ordunin to join him in exile.
His children had visited as well, accompanying trading caravans, but he
had not even troubled himself to ask them to stay; they were old enough to
fend for themselves and make their own homes without his meddling.
Overmen did not have the strong family ties that humans had, but the
triple rejection by his wives, and the failure of any of his five offspring to
volunteer to settle in Skelleth, still hurt.