"Bradley,.Marion.Zimmer.-.Darkover.-.Clingfire.1.-.Fall.Of.Neskaya.(.With.Deborah.J.Ross)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

Lord Leynier, clearly astonished, offered thanks in equally formal language. Rumail went on to present his primary mission, which everyone at the table already knew: the offer of marriage of King Damian's heir, Prince Belisar, to a Leynier daughter. What he did not say aloud, everyone also knew, which was that the marriage hinged on the girl's ability to bear children of exceptional laran. When the first proposal had arrived, Tessa, the only daughter of marriageable age, had been indignant.
"I will not be barragana to any man's accursed breeding

schemes!" she said in an unusual display of temper, for she was normally the most conventional of the girls.
"It is an honorable marriage di catenas," her father corrected her, "and not an unfair bargain." Although he had the power to force the marriage, he rarely used his authority when his children were truly unwilling. "You would trade what you contribute to the royal bloodline in exchange for a life of comfort and relative safety."
Eddard's wife of less than a year, now visibly pregnant, had brought a sweet temper as well as a dowry of prime farmland to the marriage. Her condition had kept her away from the fire camp, but it was only a matter of time before she stepped into the role of Lady of Verdanta. Tessa would eventually have to marry to find a household of her own.
"You'd be Queen," Coryn reminded her. That seemed like a grand enough thing to be.
"Nobody's asking you to-" Tessa broke off, blushing furiously.
"We marry where we must, not where we will," Beltran said. "Love between a man and his wife comes later, or not, as the gods will it. Meanwhile, we each do what we can for family, for nothing is stronger than the ties of blood." He left unspoken the thought in everyone's mind, that alliances un-cemented by fruitful marriage too often proved worthless. The value of such a union spoke for itself, in the names of the smaller estates now under fealty to King Damian.
In the end, her temper having run its course, Tessa said she would marry this Belisar as was her duty. If, that is, he were kind and tolerable to look at.
"You have several daughters here," Rumail said, his eyes sliding from Tessa, darkly lovely and poised with her hair coiled low on her neck in a silver butterfly clasp, to Margarida, with her freckles and snub nose, dressed in a smock she'd embroidered herself, and then for an instant up to the

gallery where Kristlin watched along with the other young children. "My brother asks that I be allowed to examine each of them, to determine the strength and suitability of each girl's laran."
Coryn glanced at Margarida. She kept her eyes downcast, yet he caught her flicker of dismay. She was barely fourteen-
"I had assumed the testing would be only for Tessa." Beltran said, frowning. "For she is not only the eldest, but of the most fitting age for marriage."
Rumail's expression remained bland as he said, "Yet the most fitting age may not be the most fitting match. Let us at least resolve the question of the laran potential of each girl before we proceed further with negotiations."
"If it is truly necessary, you are free to examine them in any way which is seemly for a maid and an unmarried man who is not her relative," Beltran said, with a trace of heaviness in his voice.
"It is necessary," Rumail said. "Laran may lie dormant, or be blocked, or may simply remain as a potential for the next generation." Coryn could tell from the shift in the man's voice that now he spoke with the authority of a trained laranzu. "I assure you, what I do will in no way compromise your daughters' honor, nor will there be any pain. And you, damisela Margarida, may have your nurse present if you wish."
Margarida lifted her eyes and said with spirit, "I no longer require a nurse, vai dom."
"Dom Beltran," Rumail continued, leaning forward slightly, "it was not my mission to test your sons, but I would like permission to examine young Coryn. I believe he may also have the donas, the gift."
Beltran nodded in assent and signaled for the tables to be cleared away and the evening's entertainment to begin.

Tessa played the rryl particularly well and had a light, sweet voice. Petro, who had no singing ability, accompanied her on lap drum and Margarida on a small reed flute.
As Coryn set out a cushioned chair for Tessa, he felt Dom Rumail's eyes on him. A little thrill went up his spine. Perhaps this sense of his was a kind of laran. He might be able someday to pilot a glider with his starstone. Images of hovering, soaring, looking down on forest and meadow from eagle's height, surged over him. Fervently, he prayed to Aldones it might be true.
Dom Rumail was given the small chamber used for hanging linens to dry during the winter for his testing. All through the next morning, he examined the girls, beginning with Tessa. Coryn didn't see her until that evening, for Eddard sent him out to ride the boundary lands around the fire, searching for any deeply-buried embers. Dinner was informal, as was usual on work days, with hot meat pies, aged chervine milk cheeses and dried fruit bars, nutbread and bowls of oat groats with savory sauce laid out in the kitchen. Coryn found the two younger girls and Petro here, chattering away.
"It was like-" Margarida lifted her hands in a fluttering gesture, "-like dancing on a cloud."
"Do you mean he made you go to sleep?" Petro said, scowling. "What's so grand about that?"
"You're jealous 'cause you got left out," Coryn said.
"Am not," Petro said. "I just don't want some old wizard poking around in my mind. Who knows what he'll do once he's in there? He could read your thoughts ... all your nasty little secrets. How'd you like everyone to know about the

time you set fire to Tessa's hairbrush and then dropped it down the latrine?"
Coryn landed a punch on Petro's shoulder while Kristlin giggled, "So that's what happened to it. She was mad as Durraman's donkey for a tenday, thinking she'd lost it."
Before Kristlin could ask exactly how Coryn had set the hairbrush on fire, Margarida said, "It was rather nice, what Dom Rumail did. In a dreamy sort of way."
"Well, I didn't like it," said Kristlin, sticking out her lower lip. Her brows knitted, stormy. "It felt... I don't know, like the way a snake sounds over dry leaves."
"You? What do you know?" Coryn grinned. "You don't even have a starstone yet. You're just a little girl, running around in boy's breeches-whose were they, anyway? Fra' Domenic's?" he jibed, unable to resist teasing her.
"What do you care, so long as they weren't yours?" she said, darting away when he reached out to tickle her.
One of the house servants came in and said that if Master Coryn had finished eating, could he please attend Dom Rumail? With a tingle of excitement dancing in his stomach, Coryn made his way to the linen rooms. The air smelled faintly of cedar and goldengrass, used to sweeten the sheets and keep away moths. A handful of candles filled the little chamber with gentle light. Rumail sat on a stool, hands loosely folded in his lap. Folded blankets cushioned a low table and formed a pillow.
"Am I to lie down?" Coryn asked.
"Not just yet, young master. I have a few questions for you. I have already studied your lineage, so we need not go into that. How long have you been having attacks of dizziness and disorientation? Has the nausea made it difficult for you to eat? Have you had visual disturbances, where things were not the right shape or color or would not hold still?"
"I didn't-" Coryn bit his lip. He'd thought he'd done a

good job masking his weakness. Eddard hadn't noticed anything on the fire line, or hadn't seen fit to mention it. "It's excitement, that's all. It has nothing to do with, well, anything." But even to his own ears, he sounded unconvincing.
"It has very much to do with the awakening of laran." Now a steely certainty rang in Dom Rumail's voice. Coryn felt something darkly powerful emanate from the laranzu. "And it is not a thing to be either ashamed of or taken lightly. These are the symptoms of threshold sickness, which often comes when laran powers awaken at puberty. Often, the stronger the sickness, the more powerful the laran."
"Th-this means I really do have it?" Coryn blurted out. Eagerness quivered along his nerves. "Laran?"
"That may well be, chiyu. It is what we are here to discover. Tell me, what happens when you look into your starstone? Take it out and show me."
Coryn unwrapped the stone, his eyes resting on the flickering blue light in its heart. He had the curious sensation of falling into it, going deeper and deeper. After only a few moments, the sense of giddy whirling which was now sickeningly familiar came over him. His stomach clenched and he broke out in a cold sweat.
"Enough! Look away now!"
Coryn's fingers shook as he tucked the starstone back into its silken pouch. Haltingly, he answered Rumail's questions about the symptoms which, he admitted, had been growing steadily worse over the last season.
"Is it very bad, this threshold sickness?"
"It could become so if it is not treated," Dom Rumail said. "Yet I have seen young people enter the Tower with far worse cases than yours and grow to the fullness of their talents."