"David Freer - A Mankind Witch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Freer Dave)

Prologue:

Players Various
Biscay, July 1538

Cair clung to a spar floating in the open ocean, out of sight or scent of land. The rain had stopped now,
and, as the spar rose with the swells, he looked around for other wreckage. Other heads in the water.

He saw nothing but white-capped gray sea.

The loss of his crew cut more deeply than the loss of his ship.

He drifted. And clung. The cloud-tattered morning turned to a slate-skied afternoon. There was no
longer hope left in him. Just relentless determination, beyond any logic or faith.

And on the wings of evening, a dragon came out of the sea mist.

***

Lying, bound with coarse rope, on the ribs in the bow of the longship, Cair knew that it had been no
dragon. A dragon would have mercifully devoured him then and there.

"They say," said the prisoner next to him, in broken Frankish, "That you are a man-witch. That any other
would have drowned. They found no others, nor any sign of your ship."

Cair let none of his instinctive scorn show. Primitive superstition! Instead he said nothing, keeping as still
as he possibly could in his patch of relative warmth.

He remembered little of the rest of the voyage. It was blurred with fever and exhaustion. But he was
aware that the other prisoners avoided even touching him.



Kingshall, Telemark, July 1538

"The poor girl. I feel so sorry for her. She's stunted, you know. They say . . ." and the honeyed voice of
Signy's stepmother dropped, but not so low that it couldn't be heard clearly through the thin wooden
wall. "It's thedokkalfar blood on her mother's side . . . The woman died in bearing the girl. That's a sure
sign of the ill-fortune that goes with meddling inseid -magic. And only the one scrawny girl-child, Jarl.
Anyway, it is not important. She is of the royal line even if she probably will never bear children. She's far
too small. She spoils her complexion with sunlight. And she has no womanly skills. I mean, look at her
embroidery! It's appalling. No, your master would be wise to look elsewhere."

Signy's nails dug into her palms. She dropped the frame of crooked stitchery that confirmed the truth
about her skills with a needle. She knew perfectly well that she had been supposed to hear every word.
That it was meant to wound. That didn't stop it hurting. Dowager Queen Albruna seldom missed the
opportunity to try and belittle her . . . And seldom failed to do so. It wasn't hard. Signy knew that she
was no one's idea of a shield-maiden. She was too small, too wiry, and as gifted with the womanly skills
of fine weaving and delicate stitchery as a boar-pig. She couldn't even see her threads in linenwork, let