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

worse, it eats at both flesh and wood, softening oars and ulcerating flesh. If left to stand in vessels, the
top layer of the water becomes drinkable, but the residue swiftly eats leaks in the bucket. Those who
drink it complain of headaches and wild dreams. One criminal raved of тАЬlovely serpentsтАЭ and then threw
himself overboard. Two crewmen have been confined in chains because of their wild talk.

I see no end to this horrid journeying. We have lost sight of our two companion vessels. Captain Triops
is supposed to put us off at a safe landing that offers opportunity for a settlement and farming. The
CompanyтАЩs hope of open sunny meadows and gentle hills fades with every passing day. The Captain
says that this fresh water is bad for his shipтАЩs hull. He wishes to put us ashore in the swamp, saying that
the trees on the shore may be concealing higher land and open forest. Our men argue against this, and
often unroll the Charter the Satrap has given us and point out what was promised to us. He counters by
showing the orders the Satrap gave him. It speaks of landmarks that donтАЩt exist, navigable channels that
are shallow and rocky, and cities where only jungle crawls. SaтАЩs priests made this translation and they
cannot lie. But something is very wrong.

The entire ship broods. Quarrels are frequent, the crew mutters against the Captain. A terrible
nervousness afflicts me, so that tears are never far away. Petrus suffers from nightmares and Carlmin,
always a reclusive child, has become near mute.

Oh, Fair Jamaillia, city of my birth, will I ever again see your rolling hills and graceful spires? Mother,
Father, do you mourn me as lost to you forever?



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 Legends II

And this great splotch is Petrus jostling me as he climbs upon my lap, saying he is bored. My maid is
next to useless. She does little to earn all the food she devours, and then she is off, to slink about the ship
like a cat in heat. Yesterday, I told her that if she got with child from her immoral passions, I would
immediately turn her out. She dared to say she did not care, for her days in my service were numbered.
Does the foolish slat forget that she is indentured to us for another five years?

Day the 22nd of the Plow Moon
Year the 14th of the reign of the Most
Noble and Magnificent Satrap Esclepius

It has happened as I feared. I crouch on a great knee of root, my writing desk a chest of my meager
possessions. The tree at my back is as big around as a tower. Strands and tangle of roots, some as big
around as barrels, anchor it in the swampy ground. I perch on one to save my skirts from the damp and
tussocky earth. At least on the ship, in the middle of the river, we were blessed with sunlight from
above. Here, the foliage overshadows us, an eternal twilight.

Captain Triops has marooned us here in the swamp. He claimed that his ship was taking on water, and
his only choice was to lighten his load and flee this corrosive river. When we refused to disembark, there
was violence as the crew forced us from the ship. After one of our men was thrown overboard and swept
away, our will to resist vanished. The stock that was to sustain us they kept. One of our men frantically
seized the cage of messenger birds and fought for it. In the tussle, the cage broke, and all our birds rose
in a flock to disappear. The crew threw off the crates of tools, seed, and provisions that were supposed to
aid us in establishing our colony. They did it to lighten the ship, not to help us. Many fell in deep water,