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

"Fitz is what Burrich calls me."
She flinched slightly. "He would. Calls a bitch a bitch, and a bastard a
bastard, does Burrich. Well ... I suppose I see his reasons. Fitz you are, and
Fitz you'll be called by me as well. Now. I shall show you why the pole you
selected was too long for you, and too thick. And then you shall select
another."
And she did, and I did, and ' she took me slowly through an exercise that
seemed infinitely complex then, but by the end of the, week was no more
difficult than braiding my horse's mane. We finished just as the rest of her
students came trooping in. There were four of them, all within a year or two of
my age, but all more experienced than I. It made for an awkwardness, as there
were now an odd number of students, and no one particularly wanted the new one
as a sparring partner.
Somehow I survived the day, though the memory of how fades into a blessedly
vague haze. I remember how sore I was when she finally dismissed us; how the
others raced up the path and back to the keep while I trailed dismally behind
them, berating myself for ever coming to the King's attention. It was a long
climb to the keep, and the hall was crowded and noisy. I was too weary to eat
much. Stew and bread, I think, were all I had, and I had left the table and was
limping toward the door, thinking only of the warmth and quiet of the stables,
when Brant again accosted me.
"Your chamber is ready," was all he said.
I shot a desperate look at Burrich, but he was engaged in conversation with
the man next to him. He didn't notice my plea at all. So once more I found
myself following Brant, this time up a wide flight of stone steps, into a part
of the keep I had never explored.
We paused on a landing and he took up a candelabra from a table there and
kindled its tapers. "Royal family lives down this wing," he casually informed
me. "The King has a bedroom big as the stable at the end of this hallway." I
nodded, blindly believing all he told me, though I later found that an errand
boy such as Brant would never have penetrated the royal wing. That would be for
more important lackeys. Up another flight he took me and again paused. "Visitors
get rooms here," he said, gesturing with the light, so that the wind of his
motion set the flames to streaming. "Important ones, that is."
And up another flight we went, the steps perceptibly narrowing from the first
two. At the next landing we paused again, and I looked with dread up an even
narrower and steeper flight of steps. But Brant did not take me that way.
Instead we went down this new wing, three doors down, and then he slid a latch
on a plank door and shouldered it open. It swung heavily and not smoothly. "Room
hasn't been used in a while," he observed cheerily. "But now it's yours and
you're welcome to it." And with that he set the candelabra down on a chest,
plucked one candle from it, and left. He pulled the heavy door closed behind him
as he went, leaving me in the semidarkness of a large and unfamiliar room.
Somehow I refrained from running after him or opening the door. Instead, I
took up the candelabra and lit the wall sconces. Two other sets of candles set
the shadows writhing back into the corners. There was a fireplace with a pitiful
effort at a fire in it. I poked it up a bit, more for light than for heat, and
set to exploring my new quarters.
It was a simple square room with a single window. Stone walls, of the same
stone as that under my feet, were softened only by a tapestry hung on one wall.