Under the Green Star
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Green Star Rises #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Under the Green Star». Краткое содержание книги:
The wine beaker went flying, smashing to a thousand ringing shards on the wooden floor, which further enraged the huntress. She snatched a coiled whip from her ornate girdle and sent its lash singing about the slender shoulders of the hapless Niamh.
I leaped to my feet, almost overturning the bench, and was upon the raised dais where Siona was accustomed to dine alone in a single bound. Without pausing to consider the possible consequences, I caught Siona’s wrist in a crushing grip and tore the whip handle from her, flinging it away.
The outlaw girl stood, her breasts rising and falling in their cups of silver openwork filigree as she panted, cheeks flushing and eyes sparkling with rage. At her feet crouched the frightened and cowering Niamh amidst a litter of crystal shards, in a puddle of spreading wine. Her creamy shoulders were bare and a crimson stripe ran obscenely across them from the biting kiss of Siona’s whip. Neither of us spoke for a long, frozen moment, and the hall itself was silent, the rows of foresters staring at this tableau in tongueless astonishment.
Slowly I relaxed my fingers, freeing Siona’s hand. I was breathing heavily, my eyes misted with fury, and in my present state I did not trust myself to speak.
Siona’s glorious eyes narrowed to slits of cold, burning rage. Her voice became a sibilant hiss as she cursed me.
“If ever again you lay your clumsy paws on me, you stinking ulphio, I will have you and this bungling, cringing slut flogged until your backs are reduced to ribbons,” she said venomously.
I should perhaps add that an ulphio is a tree scavenger of singularly loathsome dietary habits and particularly repulsive appearance—the Laonese equivalent of a rat, you might say—and its name is commonly employed in invective to the same purpose.
I said nothing, but stood facing her calmly, my arms folded now upon my chest. Niamh, however, got silently to her feet and without so much as exchanging a look with the enraged outlaw queen went into the kitchens, from which ere long she returned with damp rags to begin cleaning up the spilled wine. Still panting with fury, Siona made as if to kick Niamh as she knelt to sponge up the mess. I caught her by the elbow and spun her off-balance so that the blow did not land.
The Amazon girl laid one trembling hand on the arm of her chair and looked at me with eyes like daggers.
“You dare to touch me!” she shrilled.
“I am a guest in your hall,” I said calmly, “as is my mate. However, should you ever again attempt to strike my mate for any reason, not only will I touch you, but I will take yonder whip to your back, as you sought to employ it on hers.”
Siona’s rage was amazing to see. Her beautiful eyes widened to wells of flame; her tanned face whitened, paling to the color of milk; she sank her white teeth in the ripe flesh of her full lips in the fury of her vexation, and dealt me a stinging slap across the mouth. It was not the dainty blow of an ineffectual girl, but a staggering buffet, delivered with all the sinewy strength of her strong young arm, and had I not been braced to receive it I might have been knocked back against the table. As it was, my ears rang and my face went numb, and, although I did not notice it at the time, the rings on Siona’s hand cut my lip and blood dribbled down my face.
“You-you-ulphio!” she spat.
“Ulphio or not,” I replied evenly, “I am a guest in your hall. And if this is to be an example of the hospitality you deal to your guests, I begin to think my mate and I might prefer the embrace of the devil flower from which, and perhaps unwisely, you saw fit to rescue us!”
A point touched the naked flesh of my side gently. The cold kiss of the transparent metal awoke me suddenly to the very great danger in which Niamh and I now stood. The beautiful, tempestuous young woman whose eyes blazed into mine in her towering fury was the absolute mistress of this band of cutthroats and condemned outlaws, and our lives at that moment perhaps hung on a slender thread. For Siona was perfectly capable of having both of us whipped—or slain out of hand—or of having us thrust out into the wilderness from which she had rescued us, which would doubtless have the same result as if she had slain us. There was, however, no way in which I could have acted differently under such circumstances and have retained my honor as a warrior and as a man. And on the whole I believe I had acted with admirable restraint under such extreme provocation.
Yurgon cleared his throat before Siona could speak again. He stood at my shoulder, the tip of his shortsword—a weapon not unlike the old Roman gladius—just grazing my ribs.
“Guest-right is guest-right,” he observed in a soothing tone, clearly audible the length of the hall. “An apology might perhaps serve to cool all tempers …”
Siona’s ripe lips writhed in a silent snarl; suddenly, and inexplicably, her eyes welled brimful of tears and her face crimsoned in a flaming blush. Without a further word, her eyes failing to meet mine, she turned and left the hall, and did not reappear again that evening.
Tension relaxed visibly. A few men chuckled under their breath and one or two expelled long-pent breaths in a deep sigh of relief. Yurgon grinned, put away his sword, and made a gesture as of wiping his brow.
“You were near death at that moment, friend,” he muttered with a smile.
“I do not doubt it,” I said. “And I will try to see that such an outburst does not again occur.”
He nodded and clapped me on the shoulder.
“It would be wise of you to do that,” he agreed; and we returned to complete our interrupted meal. The meats had grown cold and the wine had gone lukewarm, but my appetite had vanished anyway. I drank and chewed automatically, wondering again and again the reason for Siona’s inexplicable dislike and persecution of my beloved, and why her temper should have blazed up at me.
The secret of her behavior did not at once become apparent. To me, at least. I doubt not, in cool hindsight, but that everyone else in the hall knew the secret of Siona of which I, in my masculine obtuseness, remained ignorant.
Chapter 17
A KNIFE IN THE DARK
Sligon had, of course, been a witness to that dramatic scene of confrontation during dinner, and as I took my place on the benches at its termination, it did not escape me how much the twisted and spiteful little thief had enjoyed my discomfiture. He writhed about in his place at the far end of the hall, laughing silently, his mean little eyes filled with vengeful glee.
I, of course, ignored his very evident enjoyment of my predicament. It would do Niamh or myself no good at all to further antagonize one of the band who already had cause enough to dislike me. So I generally kept out of his way and I noticed that Sligon avoided my own company as much as was possible.
That night as we retired I questioned Niamh about the incident, but she displayed a curious reticence and was obviously reluctant for some reason to discuss the flare-up of Siona’s temper.
We were still forced to sleep in the same bed, maintaining our pretense of being runaway star-crossed lovers, and while this imposed a certain degree of intimacy upon us, I, at least, strove quite manfully to avoid violating her privacy by word or thought or deed. While I was by this time very deeply in love with the Princess of the Jewel City—a fact which I am quite certain she knew—it would not have been gentlemanly or very honorable of me to have taken advantage of the situation in which we found ourselves thrown together in such proximity. For her part, Niamh seemed rather reserved. She seldom spoke to me, save to reply to my own queries politely, and maintained a degree of reserve that grew frostier day by day.