"Ed Greenwood - Spellfire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

travelers, with their unusual clothing and differing skins and voices, brought
with them the idle chatter, faint smells, and excitement of far places and
exciting deeds. Even when they came in, dusty and weary from the road,
snappish or sleepy, they had at least been somewhere and seen things, and
Shandril envied them so much that sometimes she thought her heart would burst
right out of her chest.
1O
11
ED GREENWOOD
Every night folk came to the taproom to smoke long pipes and drink Col-stag's
good ate and listen to the gossip of the Realms from other travelers. Shandril
liked best those times when the grizzled old men of the dale who had
themselves fought or gone adventuring in their younger days told of their
feats, and of the legendary deeds of even older heroes. If only she were a
man, strong enough to wear coat-of-plate and swing a blade, to set foes
staggering back with the force of her blows! She was quick enough, she knew,
and judged herself fairly strong.
But she was not strong like these great oxen of men who lumbered, ruddy-faced,
into the inn to growl their wants at Gorstag. Even the long-retired veterans
of Highmoon, some \ nodding and shrunken with age, others scarred or maimed in
ancient frays, seemed like old wolvesтАФstiff, perhaps, slower and harder of
hearing, certainly, but wolves nonetheless. Shandril suspected that if ever
she looked in the house of any of these old men of Highmoon, an old blade or
mace would be hanging in a place of honor like Gorstag's axe. If ever she got
to see any of the other houses in Highmoon, it would be a wondrous thing, she
reflected sourly.
She sighed, her scalded hands still smarting. She dared not smear goose-grease
on them before getting the herbs, or Korvan would fly into a rage. His aim
with kitchen utensils was too good for her health, Shandril knew. Smiling
ruefully, she took the basket and knife from behind the kitchen door and went
out into the green stillness of the inn garden. She knew by now what to cut,
and how much to bring, and what was fit to use and what was not, although
Korvan made a great show of disgust at her selections and always sent her back
for one more sprig of this, and chided her for bringing far too much of that.
But he used all she brought, Shandril noticed, and never bothered to get more
himself if she was busy elsewhere.
Korvan was still absent when she returned to the kitchen. Shandril spread the
herbs out neatly in fan patterns upon the board and exchanged basket and knife
for the wooden yoke and its battered old buckets. I'm used to this, she
realized grimly. I could be forty winters old, and still I'd know nothing but
lugging water. Hearing Korvan coining down
SPELLFIRE
the passage into the kitchen, grumbling loudly about the calm thievery of the
butcher, she slipped out the back door. She darted across the turf to the
stream, holding the ropes of the pails with practiced ease to keep them from
banging against each other.
She felt eyes upon her and looked up quickly. Gorstag had come around the
corner of the inn. Trotting head down, she had nearly run into his broad
chest. He grinned at her startled apologies and danced around her, making
flourishes with his hands as he did when dancing with the grander ladies of