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

quarrel, and complain endlessly, and my maid makes no effort to amuse them. Daily her contempt
grows. I would slap her disrespectful scowl from her face if I had the strength. Despite my pregnancy,
she lets the children tug at me and demand my attention. All know a woman in my condition should
experience a serene existence. Yesterday afternoon, when I tried to rest, she left the children napping
beside me while she went out to dally with a common sailor. I awoke to Narissa crying and had to arise
and sing to her until she calmed. She complains of a painful belly and a sore throat. No sooner was she
settled than both Petrus and Carlmin awoke and started some boyish tussling that completely frayed my
spirit. I was exhausted and at the edge of hysteria before she returned. When I chided her for neglecting
her duties, she saucily replied that her own mother reared nine children with no servants to aid her. As if
such common drudgery were something I should aspire to! Were there anyone else to fulfill her duties, I
would send her packing.

And where is Lord Carrock through all of this? Why, out on deck, consulting with the very nobles who
led him into disgrace.

The food grows ever worse and the water tastes foul, but our cowardly Captain will not put into shore to
seek better. My maid says that her sailor has told her that the Cursed Shore is well named, and that evil
befalls those who land there as surely as it befell those who once lived there. Can even Captain Triops
believe such superstitious nonsense?

Day the 27th of the Fish Moon
Year the 14th of the reign of the Most
Noble and Magnificent Satrap Esclepius

We are battered by storm. The ship reeks of the vomit of the miserable inhabitants of its bowels. The
constant lurching stirs the foul waters of the bilge, so that we must breathe their stench. The Captain will
not allow us out on the deck at all. The air down here is damp and thick, and the beams drip water on us.
Surely, I have died and entered some heathen afterlife of punishment.



file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Hobb,%20Robin%20-%20Elderkings%20-%20Homecoming%20(html).html (7 of 54)25-12-2006 0:50:58
 Legends II

Yet in all this wet, there is scarcely enough water for drinking, and none for washing. Clothing and
bedding soiled with sickness must be rinsed out in seawater that leaves it stiff and stained with salt.
Little Narissa has been most miserable of the children. She has ceased vomiting but has scarcely stirred
from her pallet today, poor little creature. Please, Sa, let this horrid rocking and sloshing end soon.

Day the 29th of the Fish Moon
Year the 14th of the reign of the Most
Noble and Magnificent Satrap Esclepius

My child is dead. Narissa, my only daughter, is gone. Sa, have mercy upon me, and visit your justice
upon treacherous Lord Jathan Carrock, for his evil has been the cause of all my woe! They wrapped my
little girl in canvas and sent her and two others into the waters, and the sailors scarce paused in their
labors to notice their passing. I think I went a little mad then. Lord Carrock seized me in his arms when I
tried to follow her into the sea. I fought him, but he was too strong for me. I remain trapped in this life
his treachery has condemned me to endure.