"Books - David Eddings - Belgarath the Sorcerer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

mountains immediately. There are strange things taking place here that
one does not understand, and we have errands to attend to in the
lowlands."

She sighed.

"It is always errands with you, isn't it?"

"It is the nature of the man-things," I told her.

"But you are not a man-thing right now."

I couldn't dispute her logic, but we left anyway, and we reached
Arendia two days later.

The tasks my Master had set for me involved certain Arends and some
Tolnedrans. At the time, I didn't understand why the Master was so
interested in weddings. I understand now, of course. Certain people
needed to be born, and I was out there laying groundwork for all I was
worth.

I'd rather thought that the presence of my companion might complicate
things, but as it turned out, she was an advantage, since you
definitely get noticed when you walk into an Arendish village or a
Tolnedran town with a full-grown wolf at your side, and her presence
did tend to make people listen to me.

Arranging marriages in those days wasn't really all that difficult. The
Arends--and to a somewhat lesser degree the Tolnedrans--had patriarchal
notions, and children were supposed to obey their fathers in important
matters. Thus, I was seldom obliged to try to convince the happy
couple that they ought to get married. I talked with their fathers
instead. I had a certain celebrity in those days. The war was still
fresh in everybody's mind, and my brothers and I had played fairly
major roles in that conflict.

Moreover, I soon found that the priesthood in both Arendia and Tolnedra
could be very helpful. After I'd been through the whole business a
couple of times, I began to develop a pattern. When the wolf and I
went into a town, we'd immediately go to the temple of either Chaldan
or Nedra. I'd identify myself and ask the local priests to introduce
me to the fathers in question.

It didn't always go smoothly, of course. Every so often I'd come
across stubborn men who for one reason or another didn't care for my
choice of spouses for their children. If worse came to worst, though,
I could always give them a little demonstration of what I could do
about things that irritated me. That was usually enough to bring them
around to my way of thinking.