"Robin Hobb - Elderkings - Homecoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

accomplishments had attracted a suitor of such lofty stature. When I bewailed the fate that wed me to a
man so much my senior, my mother counseled me to accept it and to pursue my art and establish my
reputation in the shelter of his influence. I honored their wisdom. For these last ten years, as my youth
and beauty faded in his shadow, I have borne him three children, and bear beneath my heart the
burgeoning seed of yet another. I have been an ornament and a blessing to him, and yet he has deceived
me. When I think of the hours spent managing his household, hours I could have devoted to my art, my
blood seethes with bitterness.

Today, I first entreated, and then, in the throes of my duty to provide for my children, demanded that he
force the Captain to give us better quarters. Sending our three children out onto the deck with their
nanny, he confessed that we were not willing investors in the SatrapтАЩs colonization plan but exiles given
a chance to flee our disgrace. All we left behind, estates, homes, precious possessions, horses, cattle . . .
all are forfeit to the Satrap, as are the items seized from us as we embarked. My genteel respectable
husband is a traitor to our gentle and beloved Satrap and a plotter against the Throne Blessed by Sa.

I won this admission from him, bit by bit. He kept saying I should not bother about the politics, that it
was solely his concern. He said a wife should trust her husband to manage their lives. He said that by the
time the ships resupply our settlement next spring, he would have redeemed our fortune and we would
return to Jamaillian society. But I kept pressing my silly womanтАЩs questions. All your holdings seized? I
asked him. All? And he said it was done to save the Carrock name, so that his parents and younger
brother can live with dignity, untarnished by the scandal. A small estate remains for his brother to
inherit. The SatrapтАЩs Court will believe that Jathan Carrock chose to invest his entire fortune in the
SatrapтАЩs venture. Only those in the SatrapтАЩs innermost circle know it was a confiscation. To win this
concession, Jathan begged many hours on his knees, humbling himself and pleading forgiveness.

He went on at great length about that, as if I should be impressed. But I cared nothing for his knees.
тАЬWhat of Thistlebend?тАЭ I asked. тАЬWhat of the cottage by the ford there, and the moneys from it?тАЭ This I
brought to him as my marriage portion, and humble though it is, I thought to see it passed to Narissa
when she wed.

тАЬGone,тАЭ he said, тАЬall gone.тАЭ

тАЬBut why?тАЭ I demanded. тАЬI have not plotted against the Satrap. Why am I punished?тАЭ


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Hobb,%20Robin%20-%20Elderkings%20-%20Homecoming%20(html).html (5 of 54)25-12-2006 0:50:58
 Legends II



Angrily, he said I was his wife and of course I would share his fate. I did not see why, he could not
explain it, and finally told me that such a foolish woman could never understand, and bid me hold my
tongue, not flap it and show my ignorance. When I protested that I am not a fool, but a well-known
artist, he told me that I am now a colonistтАЩs wife, and to put my artistic pretenses out of my head.

I bit my tongue to keep from shrieking at him. But within me, my heart screams in fury against this
injustice. Thistlebend, where my little sisters and I waded in the water and plucked lilies to pretend we
were goddesses and those our white and gold scepters . . . gone for Jathan CarrockтАЩs treacherous idiocy.

I had heard rumors of a discovered conspiracy against the Satrap. I paid no attention. I thought it had