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

The ruling house of the Six Duchies, the Farseers, were descended from those
Outislanders. They had, for several generations, kept up their ties with the
Outislanders, making courting voyages and returning home with plump dark brides
of their own folk. And so the blood of the Outislanders still ran strong in the
royal lines and the noble houses, producing children with black hair and dark
eyes and muscled stocky limbs. And with those attributes went a predilection for
the Skill, and all the dangers and weaknesses inherent in such blood. I had my
share of that heritage, too.
But my first experience of Buckkeep held nothing of history or heritage. I
knew it only as an end place for a journey, a panorama of noise and people,
carts and dogs and buildings and twisting streets that led finally to an immense
stone stronghold on the cliffs that overlooked the city sheltered below it.
Burrich's horse was weary, and his hooves slipped on the often slimy cobbles of
the city streets. I held on grimly to Burrich's belt, too weary and aching even
to complain. I craned my head up once to stare at the tall gray towers and walls
of the keep above us. Even in the unfamiliar warmth of the sea breeze, it looked
chill and forbidding. I leaned my forehead against his back and felt ill in the
brackish iodine smell of the immense water. And that was how I came to Buckkeep.
Burrich had quarters over the stables, not far from the mews. It was there he
took me, along with the hounds and Chivalry's hawk. He saw to the hawk first,
for it was sadly bedraggled from the trip. The dogs were overjoyed to be home
and were suffused with a boundless energy that was very annoying to anyone as
weary as I. Nosy bowled me over a half-dozen times before I could convey to his
thickskulled hound's mind that I was weary and half-sick and in no mood for
play. He responded as any pup would, by seeking out his former littermates and
immediately getting himself into a semiserious fight with one of them that was
quelled by a shout from Burrich. Chivalry's man he might be, but when he was at
Buckkeep, he was the master for hounds, hawks, and horses.
His own beasts seen to, he proceeded to walk through the stables, surveying
all that had been done, or left undone, in his absence. Stable boys, grooms, and
falconers appeared as if by magic to defend their charges from any criticisms. I
trotted at his heels for as long as I could keep up. It was only when I finally
surrendered, and sank wearily onto a pile of straw, that he appeared to notice
me. A look of irritation, and then great weariness, passed across his face.
"Here, you, Cob. Take young Fitz there to the kitchens and see that he's fed,
and then bring him back up to my quarters."
Cob was a short, dark dog boy, perhaps ten years old, who had just been
praised over the health of a litter that had been whelped in Burrich's absence.
Moments before he had been basking in Burrich's approval. Now his grin faltered,
and he looked at me dubiously. We regarded one another as Burrich moved off down
the line of stalls with his entourage of nervous caretakers. Then the boy
shrugged and went into a half crouch to face me. "Are you hungry, then, Fitz?
Shall we go find you a bite?" he asked invitingly, in exactly the same tone as
he had used to coax his puppies out where Burrich could see them. I nodded,
relieved that he expected no more from me than from a puppy, and followed him.
He looked back often to see if I was keeping up. No sooner were we outside
the stables than Nosy came frolicking up to join me. The hound's evident
affection for me raised me in Cob's estimation, and he continued to speak to
both of us in short encouraging phrases, telling us there was food just ahead,