"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 1 - The Ladies Of Mandrigyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

THE LADIES OF MANDR/CVN 7

all evil like Altiokis. I knew a wizard once when I was a little girl. She wasтАФvery good."

Fawn stared at her in surprise that came partly from astonishment that Starhawk had ever been a
little girl. In a way, it seemed inconceivable that she had ever been anything but what she was
now: a tail, leggy cheetah of a woman, colorless as fine ivoryтАФpale hair, pewter-gray eyesтАФsave
where the sun had darkened the fine-grained, flawless skin of her face and throat to burnt gold.
Her light, cool voice was remarkably soft for a warrior's, though she was said to have a store of
invective that could raise blisters on tanned oxhide. It was more believable of her that she had
known a wizard than that she had been a little girl.

"IтАФI thought they were all gone, long before we were born."

"No," the Hawk said. The lamplight sparkled off the brass buckles that studded her sheepskin
doublet as she fetched a skin of wine and two cups. Her tent was small and, like her, neat and
spare. She had packed away her gear earlier. The only things remaining on the polished wood
folding table were the gold-and-shell winecups and a pack of greasy cards. Starhawk was generally
admitted to be a shark of pokerтАФwith her face, Fawn reflected, she could hardly be anything else.

"I thought that, too," Starhawk continued, coming back as Fawn seated herself on the edge of the


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narrow bed. "I didn't know Sister Wellwa was a wizard forтАФoh, years."

"She was a nun?" Fawn asked, startled.

Starhawk weighed her answer for a moment, as if picking her words carefully. Then she nodded. "The
village where I grew up was built around the Convent of St. Cherybi in the West. Sister Wellwa was
the oldest nun thereтАФI used to see her every day, sweeping the paths outside with her broom made
of sticks. As I said, I didn't know then that she was a wizard."

"How did you find out?" Fawn asked. "Did she tell you?"

"No." Starhawk folded herself into her chair. Like everything else in the tent, it was plain,
bare, and easy to pack in a hurry. 'The countryside around the village was very wildтАФ I don't know
if you're familiar with the West, but it's a land of rock and thin forest, rising toward the sea
cliffs. A hard land. Dangerous, too. I'd gone into the woods to gather berries or something silly
like thatтАФsomething I wasn't supposed to do. I was probably escaping from my brothers. AndтАФand
there was a nuuwa."

Fawn shivered. She had seen nuxiwa, dead, or at a distance.

8 Barbara Hambly

It was possible, Starhawk thought, watching her, that she had also seen their victims.