"David Gemmel - Sipstrassi Tales 03 - Bloodstone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

ever.'
'Will you do it?'
'Can I eat first?'
 *
Jeremiah enjoyed the wounded man's company, but there was much about Shannow that concerned him
and he confided his worries to Dr Meredith. 'He is a very self-contained man, but I think he remembers
far less than he admits. There seems to be a great gulf in his memory.'
'I have been trying to recall everything I read about protective amnesia,' Meredith told him. The
trauma he suffered was so great that his conscious mind reels from it, blanking out vast areas. Give him
time.' Jeremiah smiled. Time is what we have, my friend.' Meredith nodded and leaned back in his chair,
staring up at the darkening sky. A gentle wind was drifting down across the mountains, and from here he
could smell the cottonwood trees by the river, and the scent of grass from the hillsides. 'What are you
thinking?' asked Jeremiah.
'It is beautiful here. It makes the evil of the cities seem far away, and somehow inconsequential.' Jeremiah
sighed. 'Evil is never inconsequential, doctor.' 'You know what I mean,' chided Meredith. Jeremiah
nodded, and the two men sat for a while in companionable silence. The day's journey had been a good
one, the wagons moving over the plains and halting in the shadows of a jagged mountain range. A little to
the north was a slender waterfall and the Wanderers had camped beside the river that ran from it. The
women and children were roaming a stand of trees on the mountainside, gathering dead wood for the
evening fires, while most of the men had ridden off in search of meat. Shannow was resting in Jeremiah's
wagon.
Isis came into sight, bearing a bundle of dry sticks which she let fall at Jeremiah's feet. 'It wouldn't do you
any harm to work a little,' she said. Both men noticed her tired eyes, and the faintest touch of purple on
the cheeks below them.
'Age has its privileges,' he told her, forcing a smile.
'Laziness more like,' she told him. She swung to face the sandy-haired young doctor. 'And what is your
excuse?'
Meredith reddened and rose swiftly. 'I am sorry. I... wasn't thinking. What do you want me to do?'
'You could help Clara with the gathering. You could have cleaned and prepared the rabbits. You could
be out hunting with the other men. Dear God, Meredith, you are a useless article.' Spinning on her heel
she stalked away, back towards the wood.
'She is working too hard,' said Jeremiah.
'She's a fighter, Jeremiah,' answered Meredith sadly. 'But she's right. I spend too much time lost in
thoughts, dreaming if you like.'
'Some men are dreamers,' said Jeremiah. 'It's no bad thing. Go and help Clara. She's a little too heavily
pregnant to be carrying firewood.'
'Yes . . . yes, you're right,' Meredith agreed.
Alone now, Jeremiah made a circle of stone and carefully laid a fire. He did not hear Shannow approach,
and glanced up only when he heard the creak of wood as the man sat in Meredith's chair. 'You're looking
stronger,' said the old man. 'How do you feel?'
'I am healing,' said Shannow.
'And your memory?'
'Is there a town near here?'
'Why do you ask?'
'As we were travelling today I saw smoke in the distance.'
'I saw it too,' said Jeremiah, 'but with luck we'll be far away by tomorrow night.'
'With luck?'
'Wanderers are not viewed with great friendliness in these troubled times.'
'Why?'
'That's a hard question, Mr Shannow. Perhaps the man who is tied to a particular piece of land envies us