"Dave Duncan - The Seventh Sword - 2 - The Coming Of Wisdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

be distinctive. It was possible.
"What are you doing about them?"
Standing in the doorway with his back firmly turned, Sali-mono said, '.'Getting
the women out, of course!"
"What! Why?"
"Ach! Swordsmen."
That was wrong. That was all wrong. Quili knew little about swordsmen, but she
knew more about them than Sal'o did. Hiding the women would be the absolute
worst thing to do.
"You mustn't! It'll be an insult! They'll be furious!"
"But, priestess..."
She was not a priestess. She was only a Second, an apprentice. The tenants
called her priestess as a courtesy because she was all they had, but she was


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only seventeen and Sal'o was a farmer of the Third and a grandfather and
Motipodi's deputy, so she could not possibly give him orders, but she was also
the local expert on swordsmen, and she knew that hiding the women would be a
terrible provocation... She needed time to think.
"Wait outside! Don't let the women leave. I'll be right there."
"Yes, Quili," Sal'o said, and the room was dark. Plumes of phantom light still
floated on blackness in her eyes. The outer door banged, and she heard him
shouting.
DAVE DUNCAN 3
Quili threw off the blanket and shivered herself a coating of goose bumps. The
flags were icy and uneven as she padded across to the window and threw open the
shutter. A faint glow entered, accompanied by a hiss of rain and dripping sounds
from the roof.
One of her two gowns was muddy, for yesterday she had been thinning the carrots.
Her other was almost as shabby, yet somewhere she still had an old one she had
brought from the temple. It had been her second best then and was better than
her other two nowтАФgardening ruined clothes much faster than being an acolyte
did. She found it in the chest, yanked it out, and pulled it over her head in
one long, shivery movement. It was surprisingly tight. She must have filled out
more than she had thought. What would swordsmen think of a priestess who wore a
tight-fitting gown like this? She fumbled for her shoes and a comb at the same
time.
Her wooden soles clacked on the paving. She opened the squeaky outer door even
as she reached for her cloak, hanging on a peg beside it. The bottom edge of the
sky was brightening below a carpet of black cloud. More roosters screamed
welcome to the dawn. She was still dragging the comb through her long tangles;
her eyes felt puffy and her mouth dry.
On the far side of the pond, four or five of the smoky rush lights hissed amid a
crowd of a dozen adults and some frightened children. Two or three more people
were heading toward mem. Light reflected fuzzily in the rain-pebbled water;
other lights danced in a couple of windows. There was no wind, only steady,
relentless drizzle; summer rain, not even very cold.