"David Weber - Worlds of Honor 4 - Service of the Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

swear like that."
Michael didn't answer. He was too busy grabbing various items of clothing, obviously
preparatory to storming out of the room.
"Hey, Michael, where're you going?"
"To talk to someone about my posting."
"You can't! It isn't official yet."
"If I wait until it's official," Michael said, his voice tight, "then it's going to be too late.
Insubordination at least. Now I might be able to do something."
Todd was too smart to fight a losing engagement.
"Who're you going to talk to? Commander Shrake?"
"No. I'm going to screen Beth. If this is her idea, I need to know why. If it isn't her idea, I
need to know so someone can't try to convince me that it is. When I know that, then I'll try
Shrake."
"Forewarned is forearmed," Todd agreed.
Michael nodded. One thing his com training had taught him. Find a secure line if you want to
discuss a sensitive matter.
He guessed it was pretty sensitive when you were going to place a person to person call to the
Queen.
***
The ship that had captured theirs had been from Masada. Judith had been too young to
understand the difference between pirates and privateers. When she was old enough to know, she
was also old enough to know that when it came to Masadans preying on Graysons the distinctions
were so much fertilizer.
 Her father had been killed helping to defend the ship. Her mother had died trying to defend
her child. Judith only wished she could have died with them.
At twelve standards Judith was married to a man over four times her age. Ephraim Templeton
had captained the Masadan privateer that had taken the Grayson vessel, and he claimed the girl
child as part of his prize. If this was somewhat irregular, there was no one left alive to protest
when Judith was not repatriated to her own people.
Even disregarding the difference in their agesтАФEphraim had seen five and half decades by
standard reckoningтАФJudith and Ephraim were not at all alike. Where Ephraim was heavily built,
Judith possessed a light, gazelle's build. Her hair was dark brown, sun-kissed with reddish gold
highlights. His was fair, silver mixed in increasing proportion to the blond. The eyes Judith
learned to carry downcast lest Ephraim beat her for impudence were hazel, brown ringing vibrant
green. Ephraim's eyes were pale blue and as cold as ice.
At thirteen Judith had her first miscarriage. When she had her second miscarriage six months
later, the doctor suggested that her husband stop trying to impregnate her for a few years lest her
reproductive equipment suffer permanent damage. Ephraim did as the doctor suggested, though
that didn't mean he stopped exercising his conjugal privileges.
At sixteen Judith was pregnant again. When tests showed that the unborn child was a girl, her
husband ordered an abortion, saying he didn't want to waste the useless bitch he'd been feeding
all these years to no purpose, and what was more purposeless than breeding a girl child?
If before Judith had hated and feared Ephraim, now that emotion transformed into loathing so
deep she thought it a wonder that her gaze did not sear Ephraim to ash where he stood. Her sweat
should have been acid on his skin, her breath poison. That was how deeply she hated him.
Some women would have committed suicide. Some might have resorted to murderтАФwhich in
Masadan society was the same as suicide, though a bit more satisfactory in that the murderer
achieved something in return for her death. But Judith did neither.
She had a secret, a secret she held onto even as she bit her lip to keep from crying out when
her husband used her again and yet again. She held onto it even when she saw the grudging pity