"Phyllis Eisenstein - Island In Lake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

Taskol shrugged. "He is a man who likes the best of things. And he deserves
them, of course, for he keeps us safe. But as headman, I must look out for my
villagers, in my own small way. Surely you understand."

"I don't wish to offend such a great man," said Alaric.

"I will escort you to him myself this evening," said the headman.

Alaric looked at him for a long moment. There had been trouble once or twice in
his life over such matters of courtesy. Not so long ago, menat-arms had been
sent to terrorize a peasant family that had kept Alaric from their lord for a
single night. But looking at the village headman, at his son and his brother,
Alaric saw no uneasiness, no sign of fear of the man who lived in the middle of
the Lake of Death. "I would like to rest my legs a little before crossing that
causeway," he said at last.

"Indeed you shall," said Taskol. "I wager you've walked a fair distance today."

Alaric nodded.

"And some ale would not go amiss, would it?"

"Indeed it would not."

The headman's hut was the largest of the village, and the only one with a door
of wood rather than hard-tanned leather, though the wood was old and weathered.
Inside, there was hardly any wood at all. Where settee and chairs might have
stood in another household, this one offered stone stools and a stone bench,
roughly shaped and thickly cushioned with straw mats. Even the bed in the corner
had not the Simplest wooden frame to raise it above the hard-packed earthen
floor; it was a mere straw pallet, though a thick one, draped with a woolen
blanket. Of all the furniture, only the tabletop was made of wood, as weathered
as the door, and resting on stone pillars instead of legs. And in the fireplace,
dried dung smoldered beneath the big cookpot. There was plenty of straw and
stone and dung around the Lake of Death, Alaric realized, but not a single tree.

Taskol's wife brought ale, and when the minstrel had quenched his thirst, he sat
outdoors on another straw-cushioned stone bench and entertained the village with
songs of the ice-choked Northern Sea and the deer-riding nomads who hunted on
its shores. Nearly a hundred listeners crowded the space beside the headman's
home, standing, sitting on the stone wall that penned his sheep and cows,
squatting on the dusty ground--the whole of the village, Alaric guessed, from
the eldest graybeard to the smallest babe in arms. He made them laugh first,
with the tale of the herder boy who discovered that his deer could speak and was
disbelieved until he revealed some of the embarrassing human secrets that the
deer knew; and then he made them gasp at the tale of the nomad who tried to save
his people from starvation by hunting the huge and terrible Grandfather of All
Bears. Afterward, when the crowd had dispersed with many an appreciative word,
Taskol served him fresh bread and new butter and admitted that his skill was
great enough for the lord of the Lake of Death.