"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 3 - The Unwilling Warlord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

"Hello," he said.
Alder nodded politely. "Hail, Lord Sterren."
Sterren sighed; he supposed he would have to get used to that pompous
greeting. "Tell me about Semma," he said.
Alder glanced at him curiously. "What do you want to know?"
"What it... what I... how it is there."
"What it's like, you mean?"
Gratefully, Sterren latched onto the phrase he had been missing. "Yes,
what it's like."
"Well, Lord Sterren, it's hard for me to say, because it's the only place
I've ever been, except for this trip to Et'shar to fetch you. I was born
there, never lived anywhere else."
"Ethshar, not Et'shar," Sterren said idly, pleased to be the one
correcting for once, rather than the one corrected.
"Et'th'shar," Alder said, spitting messily as he struggled with the
unfamiliar combination of aspirants.
"Are there many people?"
Alder shrugged. "I don't know, really," he said. "The castle is certainly
crowded enough."
"I didn't just mean the castle."
 "Well, that's where everyone lives except the peasants."
That startled Sterren and caused him to wonder if he was still
misunderstanding the word karnak after all. "Everyone?"
"Just about."
"Peasants?" The word was new to him.
"The common people, the farmers," Alder explained.
Sterren nodded, he knew about the easy marks from outside the walls. "Are
there many peasants?" he asked.
Alder shrugged again. "I guess so."
"Are you a peasant?"
"I'm a soldier, Lord Sterren." The reproof was obvious in Alder's tone.
"You weren't born a soldier," Sterren pointed out, proud he had
remembered the word "born" from Alder's earlier comments.
Alder reluctantly admitted, "True. I was born a peasant."
"Nothing wrong with that," Sterren said, seeing he had hurt the big
guard's feelings. "I was born a peasant, too."
This was a lie, of course; he had been born into the merchant class. He
meant, however, that he had been born a commoner.
Startled, Alder corrected him. "No, Lord Sterren, you were born a
nobleman."
"Well, I didn't know it," Sterren retorted. Alder considered that, then
smiled. "True," he said. Sterren rode on in silence for a long moment,
marshaling his thoughts.
At least he would be living in the castle, which would presumably be at
least an imitation of real civilization. He had feared that he might find
himself in some muddy little village somewhere. A castle was not a city, but
it was, he hoped, better than nothing.
In the remainder of the afternoon and around the campfire that night,
Sterren pieced together a rough idea of what Semma was like from a constant
questioning of his two guards. This also served to improve his Semmat