"ab Hugh, Dafydd - Jiana 02 - Warriorwards" - читать интересную книгу автора (ab Hugh Dafydd)

"Sure and they must know they can't."
"They're not cowards, the lot."
"Arrah."
"To the children."
"End to the Troubles."
Another two 'neath the well itsel', at the well below the
vattey~o,
Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes, oh.
A pair of glasses clinked together, cracking Jiana's ears.
Jiana eyed the newcomer. Padrag had completely forgotten her, for he did not know that Jiana spoke Curyc.
The monk spider, she thought, looking again at the ceiling. Terrifying of mien, nothing to back it up. You're weU-named, you hideous bugger. 1 wonder what Toldo Hondo is doing these days? She shivered with a premonition as she thought of her friend, apostate of die "True Church."
If you be a man of noble fame,
You'll tett toe me what wiU happen meseT at the weU below the valley-o,
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Green grows the lilly-o,
Right among the bushes-o,
You'll be seven years a-ringin the beU at the well below
the vaUey-o, Green grows the ti&y-o, Right among the bushes-o.
You'll be seven more a-portin in hell at the well below
the vattey-o, Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes-o.
As if in response to Jiana's arachnid musings, the canvas door of the Pregnant Bull burst open. A strange and wonderful little man entered. Tied around his waist was a rope, stretched tight as a gossamer strand behind him. Light streamed through the doorway around him, making web patterns on the wooden floor.
The man was short and stumpy, and marched like a soldier towards die bar, trailing his strand of rope. He wore neither armor nor weapons, but a rough homespun tunic and cracked, leather breeks. His boots were wooden strips, bound by cloth and stitching.
I'll be seven years a-ringin the bell,
But the Lord above may save my soul,
From portin in hell at the well below the valley-o,
Green grows the Itfly-o,
Right among the bushes-o!
The rope stopped him just a stride from the counter.
"How many in your troop?" demanded the tea-master in a haughty voice. Only dien did Jiana notice the brand on the spider-man's forehead; he was a Prisoner of the Guard.
"Who's the jack?" asked the older Curyc voice.
"My people are with diem, even cousin Niam who
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Dafydd ab Hugh
hasn't been the same since the last uprising," continued Padrag, unhearing.
"Who's the jack, the bastard on the rope?"
"Arrah, he's on a rope," said Padrag, blinking and squinting his eyes.
Jiana frowned. I've been too quick to say the Eagle bastards have outlawed slavery. I forgot about these ones.
"Prisoner of the Guard," said Padrag's friend. "Taken during a holy crusade, sure, for the Eagles call them all heretics and unbelievers."
They were held as POGs, and suffered a dubious status as neither citizens nor criminals.
"Sox mens in platoon," answered the spider-Pog with a distinct accent of Tooltafc, the language of Tool.
Jiana jumped as something scattered across her foot. She looked down; it was a tiny, white mouse. It sat on its haunches and looked back at her, twitching its vibrissae.
"But children, sure," continued Padrag, who had forgotten about the Pog. The dead past called. "What good can children, and sure an even score of them, prevail against the red and blacks in their fortress of stone, heart-hard? Even lads. Lads, but not a one among them more than thirteen turns old, Calem."
Calem laid his face in his hands, and his voice shook. But something in his mien aroused Jiana's suspicions. He bears watching, this one, she thought.
"They'll be butchered, Padrag. They'll be butchered for sure, b' Gad, for sure and sure."
"The Newlies did it before. Thirty turns back it was, before your beard even. Children again, another crusade of lads. Tfiey stood against the Eagles, and may the Lord strike me where I sit if my own son was not a-one with them."
They died?"
"To the last, true to the last. They held a bridge for half a day, and I still never cross without wiping a tear and taking a drop in loving memory for my lad. Sure and may God strike the spit from my tongue if they were not among them, my people were."
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