"Farland, David - Runelords 5 - Sons of the Oak (v1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farland David)

A woman was out late, handsome, in a burgundy work dress, her hair tied back with a lavender rag, raking hazelnuts onto a ground cloth while her red hens clucked and raced about pecking at bugs and worms in the freshly turned leaves.
The woman glanced uphill at the riders, no doubt alerted by the thud of hooves on hard clay, the jangle of weapons. Worry showed in her eyes, but when she saw Borenson, she flashed a smile, gave a nod, and went back to work.
Hearthmaster Waggit whispered to the boys, "What do you know of that woman?"
Fallion tried to let his mind clear in the way that Waggit had taught him, to focus. He was supposed to gaze not just upon her face or figure, but upon die totality of herЧher clothing, her movements, me house and possessions that she surrounded herself with.
Waggit was teaching the boys to "read." Not to read charмacters or runes upon a parchment, but to read gestures and body languageЧto "read" people. Waggit, who had masмtered several disciplines in the House of Understanding, inмsisted that "Of all the things I teach you, reading the human animal, as is taught in the Room of Eyes, is the skill that you will invoke most in life. Reading a person well can mean the difference between life and death."

"She's not married," Jaz offered. "You can tell because she doesn't have any clothes but hers drying on the line." Jaz always tried to speak first, making the easy observations. That only made Fallion's job harder.
Fallion was being tested; he struggled to find something more insightful to say. "I don't think she wants to get marмried ... ever."
Behind him, Sir Borenson gave a sharp snort of a laugh and demanded, "Why would╗you say that?"
Borenson knew this land, this woman. His snort sounded almost derisive, as if Fallion had guessed wrong. So Fallion checked himself, and answered. "You and Waggit are her age. If she wanted a husband, she'd smile and look for a reaмson to talk. But she's afraid of you. She keeps her shoulders turned away, like she's saying, 'Come near me, and I'll run.
Borenson laughed again.
Waggit asked, "Is he correct?"
"He's got the widow Huddard right," Borenson said. "Cool as midwinter. Many a man has wanted to warm her bed, but she'll have nothing to do with any of them."
"Why not?" Waggit asked. But he didn't ask Borenson or Jaz. Instead he looked at Fallion, probing, testing.
What he saw was a handsome boy with black hair, tanned features, nearly flawless. His face still swelled with the fat of a child, but his eyes held the wisdom of an old man.
Waggit studied the boy and thought, He's so youngЧtoo young to plumb the depths of the human soul. He is, after all, only a child, without even a single endowment of wit to his name.
But Waggit also knew that Fallion was of a special breed. The children born in the past few yearsЧafter the Great WarЧwere different from children bora in the past Stronger. Wiser. Some thought that it had to do with the Earth King. As if the rise of the first Earth King in two milмlennia had bestowed a blessing upon their seed. It was said that children in the rising generation were more perfect than

their forefathers, more like the Bright Ones of the netherмworld than normal children.
And if this was true of the get of common swineherds, it was doubly true of the Earth King's firstborn, Fallion.
Fallion's brother Jaz was nothing like Fallion. He was a kind boy, small for his age, and already distracted by a salaмmander pawing through the dead leaves by the roadside. He would be a thoughtful prince someday, Waggit imagined, but nothing special.
But Fallion had a greater destiny. Even now he gazed down upon the widow, trying to discover why she would never marry.
Her little cottage at me edge of the wilds was so... lush. The garden behind the house was lavish for a lone woman, and it was kept behind a tall fence so that her milk goat, which stood in the crook of a low apple tree, could not get the vegetables.
Bushes and trees had been planted around the house to break the wind and offer shelter to birdsЧbee eaters and sparrows that, like me chickens, cleared the garden of worms and beetles.
Wicker flower baskets hung from the eaves of the cottage, drawing honeybees, and Fallion did not doubt that the widow Huddard knew where the hives lay.
This woman lived in harmony with nature. Her home was a little island paradise surrounded by rocky hills.
Fallion said, "She works hard. Nobody around her works
as hard. We've seen a hundred cottages along the road, but
none like hers. She doesn't want to raise some man like he
was a baby." J
Sir Borenson laughed again. I
Waggit agreed, "I suspect that you're right. The other shacks that we've passed were poor indeed. Their owners merely survive. They look at the hard clay, the rocky ground, and don't have the heart to work it. So they let their sheep and cattle crop the grass short and live off what scraps of meat they can get. But this woman, she thrives on ground

that breaks the hearts of lesser men. One widow with the heart of a warlord, forever battling the rocks and clay and cold up on this hillside...." Waggit spoke with a note of fiмnality. The lesson was done.
Fallion asked Waggit, "Did you bring us all of the way up here, just to see one old lady?"
"I didn't bring you up here," Waggit said. "Your father did."
Jaz's head snapped up. "You saw my da?" he asked eaмgerly. "When?"
"I didn't see him," Waggit said. "I heard the command last night, in my heart. A warning. He told me to bring you boys here."
A warning? Fallion wondered. Somehow it surprised him that his father had spared him a thought. As far as Fallion knew, his father had forgotten that he even had a pair of sons. Fallion sometimes felt as fatherless as the by-blows that littered the inns down on Candler's Street.
Fallion wondered if there was more that his father had wanted him to see. Fallion's father could use his Earth Powмers to peer into the hearts of men and see their pasts, their desires. No man alive could know another person or judge their worth like Fallion's father.
Fallion's horse ambled forward, nosed a clump of grass by die roadside. Fallion drew reins, but the beast fought him. "Get back," Fallion growled, pulling hard.
Borenson warned the stallion, "Careful, friend, or the stable-master will have your walnuts."
All right, Fallion thought, I've seen what my father wanted me to see. But why does he want me to see it now?
Then Fallion had it. "With a lot of work, you can thrive in a hard place." With rising certainty he said, "That is what my father wants me to know. He is sending us to a hard place."
Borenson and Waggit caught each other's eyes. A thrill passed between them.
"Damn," Borenson said, "that boy is perceptive."

Movement up on the hill drew Fallion's eyeЧa shadow flitted like a raven between the trees.
Fallion could not see what had drawn his attention. The wet trunks of the pines were as black as ruin. The forest looked as wild and rugged as Fallion's father.
He focused on the tree line. A few great oaks sprawled silently along a ridge, offering shade to a pair of brown cattle, while smaller oaks crowded the folds. But still there was no sign of what had drawn his eye, and again Fallion felt uneasy.