"K. D. Wentworth - Hallah Iron-Thighs and the Five Unseemly Sorrows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

the sight of implements intended for canceled nuptials."



He flicked a bit of dust off his red sleeve. "It will be necessary for you to apply for your fee next year,
after the princess is wed, unlessтАФ" he waggled his eyebrows invitingly "тАФyou would care to waive it
altogether as a sign of good will?"



I drew Esmeralda from her scabbard with a singing hiss. Gerta moved to my side, her sword also
drawn.



He paled. "This is a civilized country. Hooliganism will get you nowhere." He snapped his fingers and a
hundred more sissies tricked out in gold braid flooded into the courtyard.



Gerta bounded forward, sword raised. "Death to you all!" she shouted, her blue eyes joyously savage.
"Hallah, stand back! I wish to kill the first fifty myself!"



I shook my head. Glorious death in combat is still all the rage across the channel where Gerta was born,
but my mother, Marulla Big-Fist, raised her ten daughters to be nobody's fool. "Now wait just a blamed
feint-and-parry minute," I said.



My partner's eyes blazed with anger. "Where is your pride? No one cheats Gerta Dershnitzel and gets
away with it!"



"Hold!" A tiny figure, covered from head to toe in layers of pink lace, drifted toward us across the
courtyard. Her skin possessed that classic upper-class pallor and she smelled fiercely of violets. "We
would speak with these Unseemly creatures."



"Your Majesty, no!" The head guard fell to his knees, clearly horrified at the prospect.



The princess, for that was who she had to be, stamped her dainty slipper-clad foot. "And why not,
Major Duero?"