Rage of a Demon King. Raymond E. Feist

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘You’ll find a way. Start sounding out your business associates. Once you get some names to contact, I can arrange to have one message smuggled into Queg without too much difficulty, but that’s about the limit of what I can do.’

      Roo rose. ‘I suppose I’ll find a way.’ Already his mind was turning to the problem.

      ‘My carriage is waiting and I have some distance to travel,’ said the Duke as he reached the doorway.

      James followed him and motioned for the serving girl, who was rooted to the same spot he had left her in, still holding the Duke’s cloak. She quickly helped the Duke on with it, and James stood aside while Roo opened the door.

      James’s carriage was waiting just beyond the portal and Roo’s gateman made ready to escort the carriage back to the entrance to Roo’s estate.

      As the carriage door was closed by a guard, James leaned out the window and said, ‘Don’t be too long. I’d like you to leave next month at the latest.’

      Roo nodded, and closed the door. Karli hurried from the upstairs to ask, ‘What did the Duke want?’

      ‘I’m going to Queg,’ answered Roo.

      ‘Queg?’ responded his wife. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

      Roo shrugged. ‘Yes. But for the moment, getting there is the problem.’ He yawned. Slipping his arm around her waist, he gave her a playful squeeze. ‘Right now I need some sleep. Let’s go to bed.’

      She returned his merry tone with a rare smile. ‘I would like that.’

      Roo led his wife upstairs.

      Roo lay in darkness listening to Karli’s even breathing. Their lovemaking had been uninspired. Karli did nothing to arouse his desire, the way Sylvia Esterbrook did. He thought of Sylvia during his love play with his wife and felt vaguely guilty for it.

      He had visited Sylvia almost weekly, often twice in a week, since the award ceremony at the palace, and he was still as excited by her as he had been the first time he had come to her bed. He quietly stood up and moved to the window.

      Through the flawless glass, imported at great expense from Kesh, he could see the rolling hills of his estate. He had a brook that provided, he had been told, excellent fishing, and he had a small stand of woodlands to the north teeming with game. He had said he would fish and hunt like a noble, but he never seemed to find time. The only thing that he could remotely consider recreation was his time spent with Erik at the Sign of the Broken Shield, making love to Sylvia, or practicing his swordplay with his cousin Duncan.

      He reviewed his life in a rare moment of reflection and had to consider himself both lucky and cursed. He was lucky that he had survived the murder of Stefan von Darkmoor, the journey to Novindus with Captain Calis, and his confrontation with the Jacoby Brothers. More, he was now one of the wealthiest merchants in Krondor. He felt blessed to be a family man, though his wife was not someone he cared to consider; he had long since admitted to himself he had married Karli out of pity and guilt: he felt responsible for the death of her father.

      His children confused him. They were alien little creatures, demanding things he could only vaguely recognize as needs. And they tended to smell at the most inconvenient times. Abigail was a shy child who often burst into tears and ran from him if he raised his voice even in the slightest, and Helmut was teething, which led to his constantly spitting up the contents of his stomach, usually on a fresh tunic that Roo had just put on. He knew that had he not married Karli, he would now be wed to Sylvia. He didn’t understand love, as others talked about it, but Sylvia consumed his thoughts. She took him to heights of passion he had only dreamt of before he met her. He even imagined that had Sylvia been his wife, his children would be perfect, blond little creatures who smiled all the time and never spoke unless it was required by their father. He sighed. Even if Sylvia had been their mother, Abigail and Helmut would be odd, alien creatures, he was sure.

      He saw a cloud moving across the sky, blocking the big moon, the only one showing this time of night. As the vista beyond the window darkened, so did his mood. Sylvia, he wondered silently to himself. He was beginning to doubt she was in love with him; maybe it was some doubt about himself, he thought, but he just couldn’t truly believe someone such as himself could capture her interest, let alone her heart. Still, she seemed relieved when he could arrange to visit her and her father, especially if he could spend the night. Her lovemaking was always inventive and enthusiastic, but as the months wore by, he suspected everything wasn’t as it seemed to be. He also suspected she might be giving information to her father that cost Roo in his business. He decided he would have to be more careful what he said to Sylvia. He didn’t think she was getting information out of him to give to her father, but a chance remark repeated over dinner might give the crafty old Jacob enough of an edge to better his younger rival.

      Stretching, he watched as the cloud rolled past. Sylvia was a strange and unexpected presence in his life, a miracle. Yet doubts continued to stir. He wondered what Helen Jacoby would make of this. Thinking of Helen made him smile. While she was the widow of a man he had gotten killed, they had become friends and, truth to tell, he enjoyed talking to her more than either Karli or Sylvia.

      Roo sighed. Three women, and he didn’t know what to make of any of them. He softly left the bedchamber and crossed to the room he used as his office. Opening a chest, he extracted a wooden box and lifted the lid. In the moonlight rested a brilliant set of matched rubies, five large stones as large as his thumb and a dozen smaller ones, all cut in identical fashion.

      He had tried to sell the set in the East, but too many gem merchants recognized it for what it was, stolen goods. The case was inscribed with the name of the owner, a Lord Vasarius.

      Roo laughed softly. He had cursed his luck at being unable to sell the gems, but now he counted himself fortunate. He knew that in the morning he would tell his apprentice Dash to inform his grandfather, Duke James, that when he was ready to send his message to Queg, he knew what it would say:

      ‘My Lord Vasarius. My name is Rupert Avery, merchant of Krondor. I have recently come into possession of an item of great value I am certain belongs to you. May I have the pleasure of returning it to you in person?’

      The ship rocked gently inside the huge harbor that was the entrance to the city of Queg, capital of the island nation of the same name. Roo watched with fascination as they edged close to the quay.

      Huge war galleys crowded the harbor, along with dozens of smaller ships and boats, from large trading vessels down to tiny fishing smacks. For an island the size of Queg, it seemed an improbably busy port.

      Roo had studied as much as he could on the hostile island nation, asking his trading partners, old soldiers and sailors, and anyone else who could give him an ‘edge,’ as the gamblers like to say. When the Empire of Great Kesh had withdrawn from the Far Coast and what were now the Free Cities, pulling out her legions to send south to fight rebellious nations in the Keshian Confederacy, the Governor of Queg had revolted.

      A child of the then Emperor of Kesh, from his fourth or fifth wife, he claimed one gods-inspired divine reason or another that led to the founding of the Empire of Queg. This tiny nation of former Keshians, mixed with local islanders through intermarriage, would have been something of a joke save for two factors. The first was that the island was volcanic and had some of the richest farmland north of the Vale of Dreams, surrounded by unusual local currents so that it was the most clement climate in the Bitter Sea – meaning it was self-sufficient when it came to feeding its populace – and the second was its navy.

      Queg had the largest СКАЧАТЬ