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.Of course, Filek knew nothing of his wife's social blunder and would have had difficulty understanding it.He knew little of the world of rather wicked, wealthy women in Shasht city, and Chiknulba had never dreamed of telling him.The mystery, therefore, continued to haunt him.He had never made any request for military service, he had never asked to go to sea, he had no interest in such things.But he knew that an Imperial Command from the Emperor Aeswiren III's heir could not be ignored, and so he languished on this line for roasted meat, enduring the gibes and insults of Zuik and his assistants.At last they were passing through the galley.Meat was searing on the grills and throwing up clouds of fat and steam.Great cauldrons were boiling with bones and offal, rendering them down for slave soup.On great grills over a mass of hot coals the cooks were turning a multitude of joints and sides of various animals.Everything that had been available on the Land had been taken; beavers, donkeys, elk, deer, birds of several kinds, and lots of the monkeys.All were split and cleaned and set to sputter on the grill.The ground birds that had been nicknamed "chickens" were cleaned and spitted and roasted whole.As the food cooked to a turn, the joints were handed up on platters to the High Table, where Captain Shuzt oversaw the distribution of the meat.Shuzt was that rare thing in the fleet, a fat man, stooped at the shoulders and clearly unfit for battle.Still, he held on to warrior status because of his connections to the upper nobility.Two assistants cut the joints, their knives a blur as they sliced and chopped.The officers approached from the left, the "inferior" side, and bowed over their empty plates toward Shuzt.Shuzt responded with the formal raising of his knife and fork, exchanged a few pleasantries with those men who were in his favor, then directed their plates to be loaded up with hot slices of meat, sauced liberally with thick gravy.The meat he piled on the men's plates was not just for themselves, of course, but also meant for their women and dependents.On the women's deck they were waiting eagerly for it, and beneath them even the higher-status servants were expecting something, a few scraps at least.The noble officers were done.Now the lesser officers came forward, cringing and holding out their plates."I beg thee, my superior, for the good meat you have to give."Shuzt would nod, and wave a hand to his assistants, who could judge with a nicety just how generous they should be.Some men left the table with plates groaning beneath the hot meat.Others were much more meagerly rewarded.Filek received a sufficiency, and no more.In time all the officers had been dished out.The meat began to go onto the big trenchers that were taken out to the men.Every man aboard would get meat that day, excepting the castrated slaves, of course, who would simply get broth with their biscuit.Filek took his plate of meat and headed down to the women's deck at once.Most men ate heartily before they went down to share with the women, and, some men even held to the ancient tradition and fed meat to their women by hand, as if they were animals.The women would beg, would kneel, and then be rewarded with a scrap of roasted meat.Filek was not one of those men.He loved Chiknulba, and tried to behave as decently as possible when he was with his wife.In Filek Biswas's household the rules of purdah had been very much relaxed.In the city, Chiknulba had an all-female household staff and thus escaped many of the restraints of purdah.His life had been set.He was second surgeon at the Mission Hospital.Old Klegg was number one, but had effectively retired.That had left Filek pretty much in charge.Mission was an old hospital set in a poor part of the city; there were many patients, but few were powerful.In the hospital there were endless opportunities to advance the scientific basis of surgery.Filek had worked there for two decades, revolutionizing the use of anaesthetic and painkillers.This had not been done without incurring some cost, however, for he came up against the priests of Orbazt Subuus, who were against such improvements in surgery.The zealots denounced him as an enemy of the Great God.They demanded that he be given to the priests for trial.Such trials ended only one way, with the convict bound over the stone altar while the priests raised the knife high.But Filek had a strong reputation among the Nuns of Pilki, and they had the ear of the Emperor.The zealots were whipped back into line by the Emperor's men, and Filek's work continued.Fortunately for Filek and Chiknulba, they were not alone in their thinking about the world.An alternative society existed in the capital, alongside but hidden from the main one
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Tematy
IndexWarren Adler Wojna państwa Rose 01 Wojna państwa Rose
§ Menzel Iwona W poszukiwaniu zapachu snów 01 W poszukiwaniu zapachu snów
Lachlan M D Synowie boga 01 Synowie boga (2)
Robbins Harold Handlarze snów 01 Handlarze snow
§ Rudnicka Olga (01) Zacisze 13 Zacisze 13
Reynard Sylvain Piekło Gabriela 01 Piekło Gabriela
Kalifornijska noc 01 Kalifornijska noc Adler Elizabeth
Alexandra Bracken Mroczne umysły 01 Mroczne umysły
McKenzie Catherine Idealnie dobrani
Kraszewski Józef Ignacy Semko Jadwiga i Jagiełło