Читать книгу Blindfold - Kevin J. Anderson, Брайан Герберт - Страница 32

Quietly anonymous, Franz Dokken stood in the middle of the crowd. He wore sturdy cotton slacks and a warm woolen jacket: expensive clothes but not showy. His ragged hair whipped in long strands in the gusting breeze.

Judging from the cloud bank on the horizon, he guessed it must be raining hard at his holding—good. They needed the water in the dwindling rivers that powered his hydroelectric plant.

Beside him, Maximillian loomed tall and stiff, ready to block anyone who approached his master too closely, though Dokken preferred to remain camouflaged within the crowd. He didn’t want Tharion or the others to know he had come to see Troy Boren brought before the Truthsayer.

Dokken wanted to watch the crowd, see how they reacted. He enjoyed observing how all the threads tangled together. He had begun to calculate the earliest possible time when he could disappear for a few weeks on another sojourn. He felt tired already.

“Behind schedule,” Maximillian said, glancing at his chronometer.

Dokken pursed his lips. “Don’t be such a slave to time.”

“Plenty to do back at the villa,” Maximillian pointed out. “Another shipment of pine logs coming in this afternoon. And there seems to be some problem with the fish farm. Your presence has been requested to check it out.”

“Yes, yes,” Dokken said impatiently. “Let’s just watch the show and see how much they think they know.”

Maximillian’s expression was flat and unreadable. “They know nothing about what I did.”

“Of course not,” Dokken said. “I certainly wouldn’t bring you here if they did.” He raised his head as the ship doors opened.

The hapless prisoner stumbled out in chains, escorted by the elite guard. Dokken scrutinized this lanky man who moved like a pigeon. Troy Boren was fidgety and nervous, his hair curly brown, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed repeatedly.

“They think he killed Cialben?” Dokken breathed a short laugh. “That’s funny. He doesn’t look like he has enough courage even to harvest vegetables.”

Maximillian nodded with no change of expression. “You never can tell,” he said. “Sometimes people surprise you.”