"Kate Elliott - Jaran 4 - The Law of Becoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

"Of course he must return with me," said Orzhekov cheerfully, as if she had just been offered a
prime stud. "I'm riding back to the army now. I will take responsibility for his well-being myself."

Shocked, he looked up right at her. Did she mean it? Nadine Orzhekov eyed him coolly,
disapprovingly.

"You are recently married yourself," said Mother Kireyevsky, eyeing the scar on Orzhekov's
cheek.

"Yes," replied Orzhekov in a cold voice. "I also command a jahar. You may be assured that the
child is safe with me. What is his name? Vasha is short forтАФ?"

"Vassily."

"Vassily!" Now she looked astounded, where none of the rest of his sordid history had shocked
her. "How did he come by that name?"

Stung, he forgot himself. "My mama told me that that is the name he said to give me."

Mother Kireyevsky slapped him, and he hunched down, berating himself. Idiot twice over, for
speaking at all and for giving Nadine Orzhekov any reason to think ill of him, to think he might
actually believe the fiction that his mother had claimed was the truth: not just that Ilyakoria Bakhtiian
was his father, but that Bakhtiian had known of her pregnancy and even told her what name to give
the child. Only he did believe it. It was all he had to believe in.

". . . and he's always been full of himself," Mother Kireyevsky was saying, "thinking that he's the
son of a great man. You needn't mind it. Of course Bakhtiian can't recognize him as his sonтАФit's all
quite ridiculous, of course, that an unmarried woman ..." Mother Kireyevsky was practically babbling,
fawning over Bakhtiian's niece in her desperation to be rid of him. "Of course he has no father, but
we're grateful to you for taking himтАФ"
 "He looks like him," said Orzhekov curtly, cutting her off. "As I'm sure you must know." She
sounded disgusted, and in a blinding moment of insight, Vasha realized that she was disgusted with
Mother Kireyevsky, not with him. "But in any case, I must go. I'll need a horseтАФ"

A horse! He was leaving!

"He's got nothing," said Mother Kireyevsky. "Her tent and a few trinkets."

"He gave my mother a necklace," said Vasha abruptly, emboldened by Orzhekov's sympathy.
Because he so desperately wanted her to believe him, to prove to her that it was all true, that it must
be, because he knew things that a common boy would never know. "It's gold with round white
stones. He brought it from over the seas. From a khaja city called Jeds."

"Go get your things, Vasha," snapped Mother Kireyevsky, and he flinched, but she did not hit him
again.

And when a horse was saddled and his pathetic handful of belongings and his tattered blanket tied
on behind the saddle, and he mounted up and waited for Nadine Orzhekov, he realized all at once that
Mother Kireyevsky would never hit him again. The thought terrified him. He had never in his life
strayed farther than herd's distance from his tribe. He was scared to leave, and yet he wanted nothing