"Robin Hobb - Assassin 1 - Assassin' s Apprentice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

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Assassin's Apprentice




CHAPTER ONE
The Earliest History

HISTORY OF THE Six Duchies is of necessity a history is of its ruling family,
the Farseers. A complete telling would reach back beyond the founding of the
First Duchy and, if such names were remembered, would tell us of Outislanders
raiding from the sea, visiting as pirates a shore more temperate and gentler
than the icy beaches of the Out Islands. But we do not know the names of these
earliest forebears.
And of the first real King, little more than his name and some extravagant
legends remain. Taker his name was, quite simply, and perhaps with that naming
began the tradition that daughters and sons of his lineage would be given names
that would shape their lives and beings. Folk beliefs claim that such names were
sealed to the newborn babes by magic, and that these royal offspring were
incapable of betraying the virtues whose names they bore. Passed through fire
and plunged through salt water and offered to the winds of the air; thus were
names sealed to these chosen children. So we are told. A pretty fancy, and
perhaps once there was such a ritual, but history shows us this was not always
sufficient to bind a child to the virtue that named it ...

My pen falters, then falls from my knuckly grip, leaving a worm's trail of
ink across Fedwren's paper. I have spoiled another leaf of the fine stuff, in
what I suspect is a futile endeavor. I wonder if I can write this history, or if
on every page there will be some sneaking show of a bitterness I thought long
dead. I think myself cured of all spite, but when I touch pen to paper, the hurt
of a boy bleeds out with the sea-spawned ink, until I suspect each carefully
formed black letter scabs over some ancient scarlet wound.
Both Fedwren and Patience were so filled with enthusiasm whenever a written
account of the history of the Six Duchies was discussed that I persuaded myself
the writing of it was a worthwhile effort. I convinced myself that the exercise
would turn my thoughts aside from my pain and help the time to pass. But each
historical event I consider only awakens my own personal shades of loneliness
and loss. I fear I will have to set this work aside entirely, or else give in to
reconsidering all that has shaped what I have become. And so I begin again, and
again, but always find that I am writing of my own beginnings rather than the
beginnings of this land. I do not even know to whom I try to explain myself. My
life has been a web of secrets, secrets that even now are unsafe to share. Shall
I set them all down on fine paper, only to create from them flame and ash?
Perhaps.
My memories reach back to when I was six years old. Before that, there is
nothing, only a blank gulf no exercise of my mind has ever been able to pierce.
Prior to that day at Moonseye, there is nothing. But on that day they suddenly
begin, with a brightness and detail that overwhelms me. Sometimes it seems too