"Kenneth C. Flint - A Storm Upon Ulster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

of her face were clean and bold, and the brilliant sunlight struck flickering
sparks in her flaming red-gold hair as the gentle breezes stirred and lifted
it.

"It is a mighty job you've done with the herds," the young man remarked.
тАФ

His words recalled her. She was no longer a girl of the forths and fens. She
was a queen, and her pleasures in life were of a different kind. The pull of
spring and of the past was brought firmly to heel.

"The work here is your own, Fardia, not mine," she tol.d the chieftain
honestly. "Your Firbolgs have worked magic with these beasts."

"There's many would say the reason for that lies in our being beasts
ourselves," he replied. He spoke with a smile, but his words were tinged with
bitter truth, as both of them well knew.

Still, Fardia himself would have provided little evidence for such reasoning.
The young warrior was not a common man of his race. The Firbolg warriors were
heavy of body and coarse featured, given to thick beards and long hair that
went unfastened and unkempt. In contrast, Fardia's clean-shaven face revealed
quite pleasant features, while his dark hair was combed back and caught hi a
golden brooch. He was well proportioned in shape and smooth limbed, carrying
himself casually erect with a warrior's unconscious pride in his own power.

Very young he was, even for a warrior of Connacht, being barely past twenty
years in age. But he had fought for many of those years, gaining renown in
Eire and in Espan across the Southern Sea. Now he was a chieftain of the
Firbolgs and a swiftly growing influence among all their tribes.

It was because of this last fact that Meave's voice was grave when she spoke
to him again. She needed this man and his savage people. She needed to keep
his loyalty.

"Fardia, you rmm believe there's no ill ffvljng in me for your people. There
is much you know that we would benefit in learning."

"Aye," he said, smiling, "that's true enough. But you'll have need of many
years to leani w^*t w v*┬лnw. It was the land itself taught us... and our blood
is in the very stones and trees of it!**

MEAVE 9

_ "I understand. Your people held the land for a long tune before we came."

"No one can hold it," he corrected. "We wandered it, yes. We lived with it and
learned soroe of its secrets. Yet, Eire is a fierce arid a lonely mistress
that always holds danger for its lover. The land made wanderers of us, divided