"Janny Wurts - The Master of Whitestorm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wurts Janny)

oarports as the upper-deck slaves followed suit. "Forward, stroke!"

With a drumbeat to set the speed the shafts dipped, shearing Nallga ahead against the tide. Chain rattled
in the hawse as the deck crew raised anchor, but whether the galley left port for plunder or commerce,
Haldeth could not guess. He bent his back to the oar, flawlessly coordinated with the man at his side.
Korendir's face remained as expressionless as ever beneath his tangled bronze hair. Except for the
memory of his given name, the plot and the promise exchanged in the night might have been hallucination
caused by too many years of confinement.

By noon the air below decks became humid and close. Sweat traced the bodies of the rowers, and the
waterboy made rounds with bucket, mug, and a sack of dry biscuit. Haldeth chewed his portion,
resentfully watching the mate dine on salt pork, beer, fresh bread, and grapes, provisioned at Nallga's
last port. Though the man's eye-lids drooped, his ear remained tuned to the oar stroke; not even the
lethargy of a full stomach would lighten his whiphand if he caught a lagging slave.

Korendir paid the mate little mind. He pulled his end of the oar one-handed and flicked weevils from his
biscuit with a cracked thumbnail. Though bugs invariably infested the entire lump of hardtack, he never
overlooked one. Haldeth endured the extra weight of the loom without complaint. Bored to the edge of
contempt by Korendir's fussy habit, he nearly missed the discrep-ancy even as it happened: his
benchmate passed up an obvious cluster of insects and raised the biscuit to his mouth.

Korendir tasted the mistake the moment he bit down. He choked, and with a swift, thoughtless gesture,
thrust his face through the oarport to spit over the gunwale.

Haldeth tightened his grip on the loom. Should a wave dislodge the oar from its rowlock, Korendir
risked his neck and head to a hundred and twenty pounds of leaded shoved by water with an eight-yard
mechanical advantage. Haldeth cursed and leaned anxiously into the next stroke. More than once he had
seen slaves killed by such carelessness.

Korendir ignored the danger. He emptied his mouth with unhurried calm, then executed a pitched
imitation of the captain's gruff voice. "Alhar!" Deflected by water, the shout seemed to issue from above
decks. "Get top-side, thou son of a lice-ridden camel tender!"

The mate flinched. His sallow features suffused with rage, and weapons, mustache, and tasseled pigtail
quiv-ered as he sprang to his feet and stamped the length of the gangway. Haideth felt his heart pound
within his breast. But the mate passed without glancing aside, even as Korendir withdrew from the
oarport, stupidly intent upon his biscuit.

"Great Neth," murmured Haldeth. Perspiration threaded his temples. The Mhurgai language was not a
tongue readily mastered by foreigners; Korendir's ruse indicated painstaking forethought. Yet however
well planned his intentions, Haldeth perceived no advantage to be gained through a trick upon the mate.
The man was notoriously bad tempered; his unpleasant mood would shortly be vented upon the hapless
backs of the slaves.

Korendir finished his meal. He licked his fingers and returned his hand to the oar, apparently unruffled by
the raised voices abovedecks. Between strokes, Haldeth caught fragments of the mate's protest, clipped
short by a bitten phrase of denial; the captain had summoned no one on deck, far less attached insult to
such an order. He dismissed the mate amid startled laughter from the crew. Since gossip thrived on
shipboard as nowhere else, the unfortunate officer immediately became the butt of spirited chaffing.
Haldeth knew even the waterboy would smile at the mate's idiocy before the incident was forgotten.