"Adams, Robert - Horseclans 01 - The Coming of the Horseclans" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

"For the price of your blood, spilled by me and by my clan, will you accept your freedom as payment?"

Patient and silent, he waited until, in a tremulous voice, the girl answered. "Yes,-Master."

Hwahlis shook his head. "Master no more, child. If any be master, it is you, for I and all my clansmen owe you suffering-price. We will send word to your father, your kin, that he and they may come to set the price and collect it. Mine is not a wealthy clan, but all that we have, if necessary, will go to pay your suffering-price. Until your kin and your noble father arrive, our tents are yours. You are Clan Linsee's honored guest and every
clansman and clanswoman is your . . . Why, child, what now, have I done to . . ."

Aldora's great mental powersЧand later years were to see just how great they truly wereЧhad been awakened for but a few hours, yet already could she feel the emotions of others with painful clarity. So sincerely sorry was her former master, such utter goodness of spirit and true repentance did his mind radiate, that she could not but weep. But what began "as weeping for the soul-agony that Hwahlis was suffering, merged into weeping for herself, for her aloneness, with no kin to come for her.

"My . . . my f . . . father, he ... come . . . never," she sobbed in halting Merikan.

Hwahlis took Aldora's tiny hand and patted it, roughly but gently. "Why, of course, he will, child! What sort of father would not come a thousand thousand days' ride to fetch his loved daughter?"

Her eyes closed, she shook her dark head and lapsed into Ehleeneekos. "Ohee, ohee, Ahfendiss, ohee. Eeneh nehkrohs, nehkrohs. Aldora eeneh kohree iss kahniss."

Seeing Hwahlis' honest ignorance of Aldora's pitiful protestations, Mara leaned down and softly translated, "She says 'no,' Chief Hwahlis. She says that her father is dead, that she is nobody's daughter."

The Chief of Linsee thought for only a moment, then he placed his calloused hand under the girl's chin and raised it. Gazing deep into her swimming eyes, he said, "Child-I-have-wronged, you are a daughter without a father. I am a father without a daughter. It is not meet that children should be without parents. Would you consent to be a child of my tent and clan? Aldora, will you be my daughter?"

Aldora entered his mind. All that she could find were his innate goodness and his honest concern for her welfare. She searched for signs of lust, but there were none. Its place had been completely usurped by a protective solicitude.

"Oh, Lady Mara," she mindspoke, "what shall I do?" Having had far wider experience with men and, consequently, trusting their motives even less than Aldora, a part of Mara's mind had been in Hwahlis' from the beginning.

"He is an honorable man, Aldora, and, for what he is, a very good and a gentle man. He truly wants to adopt you and he would be a fine father to you. It is but a question of whether or not you want a father."

"Well, child," Hwahlis prodded tentatively. "Will you grant my clan the honor of becoming its chief's daughter? Mine?"

"Pahtehrahss . . ." was all that Aldora could get out before the intensity of her emotions closed her throat. Sobbing wildly, she slid from the chair and flung her slender arms around the grizzled chieftain's neck and rested her head on his epaulet, her tears trailing down the shiny leather of his cuirass.

Hers were not the only tears in that place. Horseclans men never sought to restrain their emotionsЧnot among the kindred, at leastЧand there were few dry eyes as Hwahlis lifted her easily, cradled her in his thick arms, and strode to the center of the hall.

His own eyes streamed as he declared loudly, "Clan-brothers, Chief-brothers, Cat-brothers, hear me! The slave-child is free! The free-child is my daughter and your kin! She is as a Linsee-born. She is of the tent of a chief and all shall soon recognize her as such! Next year, she will commence her war-training and, when she is a maiden, she will wear my crest and draw my mother's bow. Let any man who would take her for wife come to me, and let him know that Aldora, daughter of Hwahlis Linsee of Linsee, will be well-dowered by her father and her clan!

"Gairee." He called to the youngest of his two living sonsЧwho, though but eighteen, had already killed three men in single combatЧand, after disengaging her arms, handed Aldora to the younger man, "This child is now your sister. Bear your sister to your mother and so inform her and all my tent-dwellers.

"Kahl, Fil, Sami." He addressed those who happened to be the sons of Rik, the deposed chief. "You are now my sons and will hold the chief-tent and all it contains for my return to the clan-camp.

"Erl, as my eldest son, I declare you sub-chief. See that your clan-brothers, on their return, bid their women to begin preparation of the chief-feast."

Addressing the remainder of the clansmen, he said. "Brothers, you may return to our clan-camp. When the council is ended, your chief will join you." Then he strode over to his place in the circle and seated himself.

When the last of the Linsee men had filed out, Milo commanded, "Let the man of unknown lineage be brought before me."

The two nearest chiefs rose and ungently hustled the all-but-naked former-chief forward, to stand before the dais, clenching and unclenching his fists in his frustrated rage, his face starting to puff as a result of the blows dealt him by his former clansmen.

Shoulders hunched, as if about to spring at Milo, he snarled, "This . . . this thing that you are trying to do is ... is ... is. ... All here know who I am, who my father was, know that I ..."

He got no farther. The hard-swung buffet from the chief on his right split his lips yet again and finished knocking out an already loosened front tooth.

"Silence, bastard! No man gave you leave to speak," said the chief on his left.