"Janny Wurts - The Cycle of Fire1 - Stormwarden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wurts Janny)

thwarted his effort. A fishwife cursed him. Flushed beneath his tan, Emien sat on a nail keg and rubbed
his sore leg. The brat could get herself home for supper.

But night fell without her return. Too late Emien thought of the dark ship which had sailed from the
fishers' wharf that afternoon, to anchor beyond the headland.

"I'll find her," he promised, wounded by his mother's tears. He took a sack of biscuit from the pantry
shelf and let himself out onto the puddled brick of Rat's Alley.

The moon curved like a sail needle over the water at the harbor's edge. Emien cast off the mooring of his
cousin's sloopDacsen, fear coiled in his gut.

"Taen, I'll kill you," he said bitterly, and wept as he hauled on the halyard. Tanbark canvas flapped
sullenly up the mast. Emien abruptly wished he could kill the Stormwarden instead, for stealing the child's
trust.

The black shipCrow rolled mildly at her anchorage, tugged by the rhythmic swell off the barrier reefs.
Gimbaled oil lamps swung in the tight confines of her aft cabin, fanning splayed shadows across the curly
head and fat shoulders of the Con-stable where he sat at the chart table. He had shed his scarlet finery in
favor of a dressing robe of white silk and he reeked of drink.

"You disappointed the Guard Sergeant," he said. "He ex-pected the villagers to fight for you, and he
wanted to bash heads. How very clever of you to plead guilty, Anshiri. Blessed Fires! Instead he had to
protect you from them." The Constable crashed his cup, empty, onto the chart locker. He stroked his
stomach. "The Sergeant cursed you for that."

A fainter gleam of white stirred in the dimness beside the bulkhead, accompanied by the clink of
enchanted fetters. "But I am guilty, Eminence." Anskiere spoke with dry irony. "Had I not spared your
mistress's life, Tierl Enneth would not have drowned at her hand."

The fat man chuckled. "Tathagres richly enjoyed your per-formance, you know. It was entertaining to
hear you confess in her place, just to spare an islet of shit-stinking fisher folk. Or were you truly eager to
escape their gull-splattered rock?"

Anskiere sat with his head bent. The oil lamp carved deep shadows under his eyes and tinted his skin as
yellow as an old painting.

"I forgot." The Constable belched. "You love fish stench and poverty and, oh yes, a boy whose sister
has a twisted leg. Tell me, was he good?"

"Innocent as you are foul." Anskiere spoke softly, but his glance held warning. "Why mention the boy?"

The Constable smiled and bellowed for more wine. He licked wet lips, and his hands stilled on his belly.
"Ah, it was touching, Anshiri. The forecastle watch caught the boy climbing the anchor cable. He claimed
his sister had stowed away, for love of you, and he came to fetch her home in a fish-reeking little boat.
He was angry. I believe he hates you."

The Constable's chuckle was clipped by Anskiere's query.

"What? The girl?" The official blinked, then sobered. "We searched, of course, but didn't find her.