Shadow Gate (Kate Elliott) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

54

At dawn, as the clangor of the temple bells called men to prayer, Keshad confronted the guards at the gate, holding his blessing bowl in cupped hands.

'I need to pray.'

They looked at each other. One went into the guardhouse and emerged with the sergeant while the other stared straight ahead, pretending not to see Kesh.

'No foreigners allowed in Sarida today,' said the sergeant. He was a big man with hair shaved short and powerful hands that looked ready to crush the windpipe of any clamoring fool who annoyed him.

'1 need to pray.' Again he displayed the bowl. 'I am a believing man. Not like the others.'

He did not look into the courtyard where sour-faced men gathered yawning and stretching to mutter among themselves at the locked gate. The foreign merchants had heard trumpets in the night, and now it seemed they were to be imprisoned all day, not even let free to buy and sell in the market. Mutters turned to