Текст книги "Eric (СИ)"

Автор книги: Марина Шпак

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By noon the first results from the catch were summed up. It turned out not everything is as rosy as he supposed. The fact is that from under the cottages, with which they were covered, it was visible only the individual parts of the armor. However, the overall picture was not visible. The bodies were undressed and stacked neatly by the trees, twenty paces from the remnants of the fire. And before the cooled coals there was a bunch of various junk that Eric was trying to sort and evaluate. It was clear that it did not make any sense to take everything, and it was not possible to carry it off, because for a night the horseshoe horses fled, having felt the blood and greatly frightened. So he could only rely on his horse and the two that he could find in the ravine, from where they could not get out. Out of the armor he received a dozen helmets of the spangelhelm type in good condition, six rivet mail in a condition close to slippage, three aketons and two coifs from riveted rings. Of the weapons were six copies with leaf-shaped tips and eight axes. All the rest was in a terrible state, so it took a lot of time to remove the metal from these, completely killed things. For example, it was very tedious to cut off the sewn pieces of chain mail to the old, torn aketon. Spears and axes, by the way, were removed from the shaft and stacked in a bag, so that they did not take up much space. It was decided not to take clothes, as it was stained with blood, and, in general, could cause trouble. The money was not too thick, only sixteen denarii and a handful of obols. One of the deceased was found a letter to some Italian, which set out trading information with names, names, prices and some recommendations. Comparing the information from the letter with the property, Eric came to the conclusion that the guys were hired people, who was contracted by some trading house, he also equiped. One thing was strange – why did the mercenaries behave so carelessly? Is it possible that at night the bandits do not attack? Or were they just inexperienced? In bags on horse-drawn horses they carried food for a rather long journey. From the foodstuffs, jerky, salt and bread were taken for a week's journey, on which the sorting of the property was completed, and it was time to cover up the tracks. The young baron approached the corpses and began to look around. In fifteen steps, behind the trees, he saw a small ravine, quite deep, to accommodate both comrades and their possessions. At the bottom, he laid the corpses, put all their belongings on top, which he did not take with them. Above he planted leaves and branches. The desire to burn them, he dismissed quite quickly, since the smoke and stench of burnt meat, can attract other people. When he had finished his work in the parking lot, he packed the khabar with clockwork horses and, tying them with bridles, behind the saddle in front of him, again drove towards Augsburg.

The next two days, Eric moved extremely cautiously, stopping at night only in large inns, and on the road moved in fragments, avoiding any suspicious fellow travelers and protracted conversations. On the morning of the third day, a dozen miles of the road, a small village emerged from behind the turn. There it was very noisy and from the outskirts there was absolutely no people to be seen. Having held the horses, the young baron jumped to the ground and cocked the crossbow, sat back in the saddle, and, holding his weapon on the ready, moved to the village. Something strange happened there. In the square stood a crowd, in the center of which, on the barrel stood a priest, at his feet was a bound young woman. The sight of this poor thing was pretty sad: clothes are torn in many places, many abrasions and bruises, all dirty in mud and own blood. Eric drove up to the crowd a dozen steps away. The cries subsided and everyone looked at him.

" Who is this woman? " Asked von Lenzburg in Latin in a most heavy, almost buzzing voice. He said and almost did not flinch, because he did not even suspect that he had such a useful and loud voice if bellowed.

"This woman is a helper of Satan, Irish," the priest answered politely and bowed. "Forgive my impudence, but what made the noble gentleman visit our humble village? "

" I'm just passing through here. "I was attracted to the noise that you arranged. What exactly did she do?

"She poisoned the cows from the venerable husband Henrik.

"What are you going to do with it? "

"We want to sink her noble lord. "

"Who judged her? "

" We tried it with the whole world. "The decision was taken unanimously.

"And who owns this village? "

"To the honorable Sir Harald. "

"Why did you dare neglect his trial? "

Then a huge man with an ax jumped out of the crowd and, stepping on a pair of cases forward, stood in half-turned and roared with a thick bass:

He did not have time to finish the conversation, since the bolt lay neatly in his ear. Eric slowly lowered the crossbow, looked around the silent crowd with an evil glance and in the same buzzing voice asked:

– Who else wants to express his respect to Baron Eric von Lenzburg?

The crowd was frightened in silence. Yeah, the pressure and arrogance – the second happiness. And our hero, not wanting to lose initiative, practically growled, taking out his sword from its scabbard:

" Get out of the square! " Running Dishonor! Harald learns – everyone hangs on the branches!

And he moved forward. Latin, of course, they did not know, but the tone with which these words were uttered, and the naked blade very stimulate inter-lingual communication. So, after half a minute, only a nervously sobbing woman remained in the square, the abbot of the village church, pale with fear, and the corpse of the unlucky ruffian. Arriving nearer to the priest and not getting off his horse, he lifted his drooping head with the end of the sword so that he would look into his eyes. He watched it for about five minutes. And then he said:

" Good man, do not take it for work, untie the rope on this woman and take us to her house. "You're a kind person, will you help me? "

The priest nodded quickly.

Ok. And afterwards you will bring her horse to her house under the saddle and, tying him to the fence, will do what the good people of this village have done. After all, do you want to return to your house, and lie down a bit on your favorite trestle, thinking about the inscrutability of the ways of our Lord Jesus Christ?

The priest again expressed his full consent. And the baron smiled at him in the most gracious way, and then, suddenly changing his face to a completely furious and malicious expression, he roared:

Do it!

At the same time, just dipping the tip of the sword into the chin of the holy father, which made the blood run through a thin trickle along his fat neck. By itself such happiness our figure in the church apparatus could not stand and most naturally wet himself. But he quickly realized himself and began to follow very carefully and diligently all the instructions that Eric had given him. So forty minutes later our brutal boy was driving his small caravan in four horses.

They were silent for the first hour. Then the woman, slightly drove her horse, came up to him, put a hand on his shoulder and said something in her, in a bird's tongue. The Baron arched an eyebrow in surprise and, scratching his head thoughtfully, asked her in Latin, for he had not understood the words he had just uttered. In general, it turned out that she knows Latin, but it's bad, but he does not know the ancient version of Irish, even at the level of elementary phrases. The next two days of the trip were quite calm, only in the evenin, in the tavern, the host was indignant at the depravity of the young knight, who was dragging to his room some kind of indecent girl. But everything was decided very simply and graciously. Eric approached him with the slightest smile, drew his dagger and pressed them, completely superfluous to him, in the crotch of the talkative fat man. He immediately lost his talk and made a profuse sweat. Meanwhile, the baron, keeping the same sweet smile, told him that it was a sinful thing for such a venerable person to talk about absolutely indecent things in the presence of a lady, especially not knowing who was in front of him. Needless to say, the fat man assuredly assured that from tomorrow he would sit down on a fortnight's post to clear his filthy language, which uttered such an obscene muck, naturally, uttered entirely by stupidity, without evil and some kind of back thought. On this, all the surprises have exhausted themselves. Two days of the journey were filled with conversations that went with difficulty, due to some language barrier, but, nevertheless, with mutual interest. His new companion was only 18 years old, although he thought it was more, and her name was Morrigan. An unusual name, but also an unusual girl. As he understood from the story, this girl was the daughter of Dermod MacCarthy, the fourth ruler of the Desmond kingdom in southern Ireland. When nine years ago her brother sat on the throne, he decided to get rid of his numerous relatives in the form of brothers and sisters, in order to sit on the throne stronger. Therefore, in the same year, the Normans were hired, who raided his palace, during his absence for hunting. All were killed, even the servants' children, only a nine-year-old Morrigan was able to hide in a basket with a bunch of tattered rags. When the enemy left, she took her to her and nursed her along with her children, a devoted servant. As soon as she was 12 years old, the husband of the wet nurse blabbed about the fact that a girl from the Dermoda family was still alive. Guests visited quickly and immediately. This time the brother was not shy and came himself, along with his squad. He interrupted the whole village, but she managed to escape again. The most ugly thing was that this scoundrel defiantly hung all the villagers on the boughs of trees growing in the district, and she sat in reeds and sobbed. For a couple of days she fled in hysterics to the east, she turned out in pain and fear, but not to herself, but to those people who could die if they knew who she was. In tattered clothes, she fell on a small hillock, overgrown with moss, and when she woke up, she was in a hut with an elderly woman who had sheltered her. It was an herbalist. Three years ago, this kind grandmother died of some strange disease and the girl, afraid of getting infected, fled from there, and then on a rowing boat that she stole in a small village on the southern coast of Ireland, went across the sea. Oh, and she had a terrible fear when she crossed the strait to Normandy. Then there was a trip on some roads, until last year, she decided to settle in the village he already knew. But here everything was disgusting and wrong. Morrigan was young, beautiful, and was for them a stranger, so she struggled to climb under the skirt, sometimes by force, in places sweet tale, most of the male population of the village, strangely enough, primarily family. Of course, she fought back, as best she could and as she could. So I was able to preserve my virginity, which terribly irritated my neighbors. And so, the day before the well-known events, the same peasant whom Eric shot, receiving from her a yoke between his legs, decided to take revenge. He was a nasty person, and therefore accused her of dying, a week earlier, of the cow. Say, it was she, a sorceress, who poisoned her. The village took this decision with a bang, for almost all the peasants suffered from wounded pride, and all women were afraid that they would be taken away by the peasants. In short, word for word, they came to her house all crowd, beaten and dragged to the square. And there the priest began to publicly slander her, calling him a walking maid and an accomplice of Satan. In short – her fate was full of joy, happiness and family warmth. Eric also concluded for himself that he now has a potential candidate for the medical provision of the gang. She is thin, but small, it is true – in her eighteen years, she looks smaller than the baron at 14. But the Morrigan character is correct, it did not break down, well done. Yes, and she swore to him in loyalty until his death, which is important. So, in the solution of the second task, the first move and the move are very nice.

In Augsburg, they spent a total of about a week. All the iron and aketons were successfully delivered in bulk. Of course, without bargaining was not done, so instead of a hundred and thirty denarii, which gave the smith from the beginning, Eric received from him one hundred and fifty. Together with the coins that they already had, it turned out a fortune – almost a silver stamp! On it, for example, you could buy a very solid scaly armor, made for him personally, still remain. But such purchases were irrelevant, therefore all week has left on quite ordinary things, like gathering of hearings about road and inns. From the equipment was sewn new clothes for our baron and Morrigan. The clothes were made of wool and silk, while silk went to underwear, and wool to almost everything else. After all, the gang should look neat and fresh, so that it would be trusted and respected at the first impression, and Eric's worn clothes and torn his companion would not at all contribute to this. The saber was also put in order – she was made a normal sharpening of the blade and replaced the worn handle, so that now it was easy to hold and use. Among other things, was bought a new round shield with an umbon and a suspension on his shoulder. The shield was divided into four equal parts, which were painted with white and red paint in checkerboard pattern. Well, finally, a dense, crested cat of linen, without sleeves, was purchased, white with a black cross on the belly as a symbol of going on a campaign to liberate the Holy Land. They gave eleven denarii for everything, so that when they left the city, they had one hundred and seventy denarii and twenty-three obols. The day before he departed, Eric noticed his old acquaintance, Rudolph, who was leaving the armory shop. Pointing to him Morrigan, the baron ordered her to track down this man, and then return to that tavern where they stopped. He quickly went to the market, where he bought a small piece of parchment, a little ink and a few feathers. The next morning Morrigan went into one private house, where she asked the servant about the residence of a certain Sir Rudolph, the faithful knight of Baron Karl von Lenzburg. Receiving a positive response, she asked to call such a respected gentleman, since she had a letter for him. Alas, he slept and the servant was afraid to wake up and swearing assured that if she sends a letter to him, then she will certainly reach the addressee. After a little wriggling, the girl agreed and, giving a folded piece of parchment, quickly left. The venerable sir, waking up only for dinner, learned with curiosity that in fact the letter was addressed not to him, but to his suzerain (by the inscription on the outside of the parchment). But, since there was no seal, Rudolph decided to read this curious piece of parchment.

Chapter 2

"Good day to you, my beloved uncle. Sincerely I hope that your health did not shake the wet holes of our ancient castle. Taking the opportunity, I hasten to please you with my successes and excellent health. The other day I joined the venerable knights of Aquitaine on their march to the Holy Land, where we should soon depart from the wonderful city of Venice. All of us here are inspired and sincerely hope for the success of the enterprise. I will try, as you advised, to protect yourself and, carrying the cross of the holy warrior, not to perish in the ancient sands, so as to fill with joy and pride the heart of your adored uncle.

With a good memory, a loving nephew, Eric von Lenzburg. "

After reading the letter, our faithful companion Uncle Karl mysteriously grinned. Next was the questioning of the servant about how this woman looked, what else she said and where she went after. Eric decided to cheat and, foreseeing that the old friend would decide to fidget, left through the gate leading to the Italian coast. Few of this, he poured out a whole denarius to the guards at the gate, so that they prayed for him in his difficult affair to free the grave of the Lord. Of course, introducing yourself. The guards were delighted and for a long time shouted blessings to the departing travelers. In fact, the young baron, having driven off so as to completely disappear from the eyes of the city guard, turned north-east and by the time he was on his way to Vienna. But the owl was worth the candle, because because of such a feint with beautiful ears, Venice literally in five days joyfully met completely out of breath Rudolph at the head of a detachment covered with road dust into twenty amazing snouts. From where they, without any positive results, were forced to return to the castle of Lenzburg for a report. They ran certainly noble. Well, what do you want me to do? That is life. After all, not for buns with milk, they got right up to Augsburg itself? It was quite obvious that his beloved uncle was very upset by the fleeting departure of his dearest nephew, and therefore decided to attend to his fate, and sent to search an armed detachment led by a sensible officer. It is easy to guess that the joy of meeting so many colorful figures with our hero would have come to him not only sideways, but also other, no less interesting parts of the body.

I must say that the horseback crossings caused one, rather unusual, difficulty. Not everyone, even a highly experienced rider, will get to climb into the saddle and, humanly, go, pre-wearing a lot of skirts. Since the street is warm, some Morrigan skirts were forced to take off, remaining only in the short lower, silk, and the strongest, road, of wool. And, for the time of the equestrian crossing, a long outer skirt was tied up with ribbons so that improvised pants were made. Wretched to the extreme, but still, allowing our girl more or less independently to climb into the saddle and go there. Of the modern analogues, the closest in appearance will be trousers in the Afghan style.

The way to Vienna was not close, but our hero was in no hurry, and therefore not only did not drive the horses, but also tried to choose an inn in such a way as to settle there before dark. To the pleasure of Eric, her companion was not particularly scrupulous about the issues of robbery, since she often starved and did not burn with a special love for the people who so often humiliated and tormented her, so that she could be relied upon. After noon on the third day, the robbers tried to attack them. Making a volley with arrows from the ambush, they jumped out of the bushes and rushed with axes on the travelers. Reasonable ambush – the archers missed the riders and gave a volley to them in the back, and the infantry came out on the forehead. But the archers were inexperienced and almost all the arrows went "into the milk," only one with a buzzing buzz hit the baron in the shield hanging behind him. Without lowering the course, the guy grabbed the crossbow and drove the bolt into the robber, walking with a big spear, along the most dangerous trajectory. After the baron, he fixed his throwing unit on the saddle and pulled out a saber. Morrigan reacted quickly and adequately – by clear movement having unhooked the horse's horse of his suzerain from his saddle and holding a bridle in his hand, she got attached to him in a wake. After receiving the freedom of maneuver Erik, with a completely wild and strange roar "For Mamuja! " rushed to the nearest men. He himself did not understand why this stupid motto from the old toy Anril Tournament came to him. His opponents were completely stunned by this turn of events. The fact is that usually the selected victims, seeing a strong numerical superiority, retreated, or fled and got almost a volley of arrows from a few steps. And then everything went wrong. But no one was going to give them time to enlighten the mind, and therefore the first robber flew to the side and lost consciousness, being knocked down by a horse, and the second collapsed with a head cut like a ripe pumpkin. A considerable gap was formed. Eric turned his horse to the left, giving way to leaving the girl with the baggage, and attacking the next batch of unlucky robbers. Our Irish completely justified his trust and, not hesitating, rushed into a breakthrough to retreat to a safe distance. Seeing the approaching baron, the loggers, who were not particularly brave, turned to a completely natural flight. But, alas, the chopping blows of the sword on the body closed only by the cloth do not contribute to the strengthening of health. This would continue until the final destruction of the infantry, but the archers realized and rushed to the rescue. Three arrows flew into Eric's shield, still hanging on his back, another arrow hit him in the arm and hurt heavily, but did not break the chain mail. He began to maneuver and zigzag move away, sharply changing the direction of movement in an arbitrary order. In general, broke. It was his first natural fight in the new body. He was exhausted so terribly that after reaching an hour-by-hour tavern, he decided to stop and rest, without waiting for the evening. Although it was quite possible to go quietly for three or four more hours.

In the morning his whole body ached, especially the left forearm, where the arrow hit, so they drove more slowly than usual. The end of the fourth day of the journey led them to a rather lively inn in the large commercial city of Regensburg. Everywhere there was a hubbub and noise. After talking with the people, Eric found out that Arab merchants were going through the city. Of course, he immediately went to look at them and assess their strengths and benefits from a small accident. Alas, but with the merchants there were four dozen well-armed equestrian warriors. Yes, and the wagon is huge – what to do with a whole column of carriages with valuable eastern fabrics was completely incomprehensible. In general – no luck. However, later, eating with Morrigan in the common room of the tavern, he found out that literally across the table from them sat the guys from the guard of a certain Mr. Stefan Solvati, who was going to Genoa with an order from one Krakow trading house. The guards were recruited from different nations, and therefore they communicated among themselves in broken Latin, often distorting it and babbling on their native dialects. If it were not for profound knowledge of vulgar Latin, it is still unknown – would understand what our young baron or not from their conversation. Having eaten, he went up to his room and began to explain that the young Irishman must learn by turning around in the hall. Her idea was not very pleasant, as robbing emissaries of trading houses is dangerous, but obeyed and left. After a couple of hours, when it was completely dark, she returned, carrying with her information on the protection of a curious Italian and other interesting details. In general, nothing particularly iridescent did not work. In total, our Stefan had one servant and a dozen guards. Guard experienced, sensible, in good armor and with quality, well-groomed weapons. At the same time, it was especially unpleasant that every guard had a good Hungarian bow. They were going to spend another day in the city, talking about something with the Arabs, and then leaving for Milan. They always stop exclusively at inns, move very carefully and in general the level of vigilance goes off scale. The only weak point was the storage of provisions, which they keep in the cellar of a tavern, because it's hot outside. If we summarize, then we get a strong and vigilant company, which we can not take by available forces. But the level of their equipment and vigilance was intrigued to the extreme, because only one armor cost not less than three or four marks, and about what they were carrying, it remains only to guess and to lick. After calculating the situation, the young baron began to torture Morrigan about her, extremely useful, knowledge received from a kind grandmother in the forest. By morning the plan was ready, and they went to the pharmacist for the ingredients. But they decided to stop by one by one. At first our young lady was going on, who talked for a long time about herbs, treatment and other interesting things with an elderly, esculapius. Having found out that he has the right amount of dried belladonna and hoof oil, she paid for everything without bargaining. The batch of grass was taken quite considerable, with a margin, according to our beauty's calculations, it is enough for a double lethal dose in each wineskin. The stock was taken with the expectation of an unforeseen situation.

Meanwhile, Eric himself went to the market and tried, quite randomly, to get acquainted with Stefan. Strangely enough, but such an interesting young man himself attracted the attention of the Italian. The fact is that after realizing what the Italian is following, the baron arranged a small bush with a tight-fisted merchant. Well, the poor fellow was not at all willing to give him a piece of parchment for half the price. The beauty and elegance of the designs that our baron weaved from the correct Latin language, in the process of invoking the head of the gargoyle of wrath of the most diverse Gods and body parts, amazed imagination, and therefore were duly appreciated by the Italian. He gladly joined in this fun and, together, they were able, in front of the gay audience, to repulse the parchment for the young knight. And got acquainted. They talked and were surprised to find that they live in the same tavern. So, swearing vowingly to wake up in the evening and talk about the hard life of travelers, they went about their business in an excellent position of spirit. From the market, our joker went straight to the pharmacist where, on the list compiled by his herbalist, he bought the ingredients for the additive and neutralizer. The main problem was that the trading emissary accidentally break out with the company, should be outside the city, preferably on a deserted road. Therefore, it was decided to poison the wine in the road wineskins, which they kept in the basement of the tavern, and that in the morning they all wanted to drink abundantly, in the evening with them to hike and drink wine with a small additive causing a strong and persistent dryness in the mouth and throat. Nothing dangerous and you can survive, but you will want to drink very solidly, so they sip their wineskins for a sweet soul. Until the first tavern is not reached, as a vyhlebayut. The concentration of poison decided to do a little, so that it did not cut down the people at once, but let it go away. The reason for drinking, in addition to the glorious acquaintance was mutually beneficial transaction for the sale of the letter, which was seized during the last catch. As it turned out, it was very useful for trade people. For the letter, ten denarii were poured, which were peppered to the undisguised joy of the guards. One misfortune, the additive causing dryness had to be added to all the wine that was in the tavern, so that the mass of people in the morning will simply be deceived with pleasure. Except, perhaps, our treacherous couple, which was prepared for itself by an additive neutralizer.

Evening came. We sat. We chatted. Stefan's guards were particularly pleased with the story of the escape from the castle and the battle with the robbers. The authority of the young knight in their eyes has grown significantly. Drank, surprisingly, modestly. But additives and from one glass should suffice, and have drunk not less than three mugs each. They sat there merrily, setting the tone for the whole room, but, alas, everything once comes to an end. So our craftsmen had to disperse. As usual, they said goodbye for a long time, shook hands. The Italian invited to visit Genoa and told in detail how to find his house. A little more and they would have started to fraternize, but Morrigan intervened in a timely manner, as she was observant of everything from a distance, because the woman was indecent to drink with men. All went to the rooms and went to bed. But our hero was not up to sleep – he was intolerably anxious for sex, as the young hormones played so violently that banally prevented him from falling asleep. At hand was the Irish, but she could not be touched, since she was subordinate and after such a precedent it would be difficult for him to keep a distance with her. You could always go down into the common room and seduce one of the girls that carry the food, but the chance of getting a good, good sore on your lower head exceeded all reasonable limits. It remained to look for young virgins and try to achieve success with them. Dirty, of course, but in addition to irritation mucous, nothing terrible will not work. But this is an idea! In general, after half an hour he flirted at the porch of one of the houses with a young special fourteen years old, who clearly had an interest in our baron. Whatever you say, but at the age of 14 he looked very solid and attractive: a soft bass, a stern face and a harmoniously built, strong body. As a result, an hour after he went hunting, he was already doing "gymnastics" in full swing in the collapse of the hay behind the city stables. Filling his bubbling physiology, he took a note on the note and subsequently used it more than once. When our young Lovelace returned to the room, Morrigan did not sleep, but carefully pretended. In the end, he caught her at the moment when she opened her eyes. Realizing that the conspiracy had failed, she looked condemnantly at our hero and, pressing her lips, pointedly turned to the other side.

The morning met Eric light and fresh. Broths that made his companion, worked just miracles – no headaches, no dryness, no lethargy. As if I did not drink in the evening. They had risen before the Italian, but they waited while the man, with enough sleepy guards, departed on his way to Milan. After that, at a considerable distance, they followed them. Although the plan was both risky and complex, but it worked like clockwork. Three hours' drive, on the shore of a small lake, surrounded by willow thickets, they found the emissary's camp. The only person who was still alive was Stefan himself. He grabbed the air hoarsely, trying to breathe, but the rapidly developing throat swelling surely killed him. Eric approached, crouched down and smiled sweetly. Stefan recognized him, pulled his hands to him and wheezed: