"Briggs, Patricia - Sianim 2 - Steal the Dragon.text" - читать интересную книгу автора (Briggs Patricia)

more, Tris risked the wrath of Lord Karsten and hunted the forest animals himself.
He maintained that years of sneaking around catching herbs unaware lent him stealth
that served him well against both the forest animals and the two-legged beasts that
the overseer hired to keep the peasants from helping themselves.

In the front room of his two-room cottage, Tris wiped down the counter that
kept his customers' children out of the various pots and jars that he stored on the
shelves. The rag that he used was not as stained as his powerful hands, which were
presently an interesting shade of lilac. He'd found a patch of avendar on his walk
this morning, an herb useful for making burn salve and dark purple dye.

To his immense surprise, the healer had found contentment in the little village. He
was even fond of the neat little cottage that stood on the other side of a small hill
from Tallonwood. The location allowed him the illusion of privacy and the
convenience of being upstream from the village waste.

Tris looked up, rubbing his beard, as the door chimes announced the entrance of
the headman's mother, Trenna.

Old and crippled as she was, she carried herself with an air that made even the
lord treat her with respect. If she'd been born in another place, she would have been
trained as a mage. In Darran she was the village wisewoman, advising the elders on
such things as which goat would give more milk and which should be butchered, or
when the first snow would fall.

If Tris knew that her accuracy was due to something other than observation and
experience, then she knew that there was more than herbs in Tris's recipes. The
magic that they used was different, but it was magic just the same.

It had been Trenna, searching for an elusive plant, who found Tris where his own
people had left him: bound and waiting to die. Her magic sometimes expressed itself
in the rare ability to see into future possibilities. That gift allowed her to discern his
nature and see hope for her village. She offered him a bargain.

If she freed him, he would serve her village for a year as healer. The conditions
would be difficult. Her people were hostile to magic, so he would have to hide his
natureЧat the same time helping them to the best of his abilities.

Tris had been waiting patiently for death. Even if he could have escaped, his rash
act of kindness would have exiled him from his people forever. Dying did not seem
so harshЧuntil he'd been offered a chance at a life. He agreed to her terms.

The bonds that held him were designed to resist magic, but not the simple steel
knife that Trenna used when hunting plants for her potions. After she healed his


wounds with her crude herb lore (Tris had difficulty working the healing magic on
himself), Trenna told the village elders that he was a relative, a healer who had grown
tired of his travels and had come to stay there.