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

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kelp and fish guts, while the keening of the gulls and seabirds was an eerie
melody above the rhythmic shushing of the waves. The town clings to the rocky
black cliffs much like limpets and barnacles cling to the pilings and quays that
venture out into the bay. The houses were of stone and wood, with the more
elaborate wooden ones built higher up the rocky face and cut more deeply into
it.
Buckkeep Town was relatively quiet compared with the festivity and crowds up
in the keep. Neither of us had the sense or experience to know the waterfront
town was not the best place for a six-year-old and a puppy to wander. Nosy and I
explored eagerly, sniffing our way down Bakers' Street and through a
near-deserted market and then along the warehouses and boat sheds that were the
lowest level of the town. Here the water was close, and we walked on wooden
piers as often as we did sand and stone. Business here was going on as usual
with little allowance for the carnival atmosphere up in the keep. Ships must
dock and unload as the rising and falling of the tides allow, and those who fish
for a living must follow the schedules of the finned creatures, not those of
men.
We soon encountered children, some busy at the lesser tasks of their parents'
crafts, but some idlers like ourselves. I fell in easily with them, with little
need for introductions or any of the adult pleasantries. Most of them were older
than I, but several were as young or younger. None of them seemed to think it
odd I should be out and about on my own. I was introduced to all the important
sights of the city, including the swollen body of a cow that had washed up at
the last tide. We visited a new fishing boat under construction at a dock
littered with curling shavings and strong smelling pitch spills. A fish-smoking
rack left carelessly untended furnished a midday repast for a half dozen of us.
If the children I was with were more ragged and boisterous than those who passed
at their chores, I did not notice. And had anyone told me I was passing the day
with a pack of beggar brats denied entrance to the keep because of their
light-fingered ways, I would have been shocked. At the time I knew only that it
was suddenly a lively and pleasant day, full of places to go and things to do.
There were a few youngsters, larger and more rambunctious, who would have
taken the opportunity to set the newcomer on his ear had Nosy not been with me
and showing his teeth at the first aggressive shove. But as I did not show any
signs of wanting to challenge their leadership, I was allowed to follow. I was
suitably impressed by all their secrets, and I would venture to say that by the
end of the long afternoon, I knew the poorer quarter of town better than many
who had grown up above it.
I was not asked for a name, but simply was called Newboy. The others had
names as simple as Dirk or Kerry, or as descriptive as Nitpicker and Nosebleed.
The last might have been a pretty little thing in better circumstances. She was
a year or two older than I, but very outspoken and quick-witted. She got into
one dispute with a big boy of twelve, but she showed no fear of his fists, and
her sharp-tongued taunts soon had everyone laughing at him. She took her victory
calmly and left me awed with her toughness. But the bruises on her face and thin
arms were layered in shades of purple, blue, and yellow, while a crust of dried
blood below one ear belied her name. Even so, Nosebleed was a lively one, her
voice shriller than the gulls that wheeled above us. Late afternoon found Kerry,