"Robin Hobb - Tawny Man 1 - Fool's Errand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

Outside my small window, the returning birds sang their challenges to one another.
There was a light wind, and whenever it stirred the trees, they released a fresh shower
of last night's rain to patter on the wet sward. The trees were silver birches, four of
them. They had been little more than sticks when I had planted them. Now their airy
foliage cast a pleasant light shade outside my bedroom window. I closed my eyes and
could almost feel the flicker of the light on my eyelids. I would not get up, not just yet.
I had had a bad evening the night before, and had had to face it alone. My boy,
Hap, had gone off gallivanting with Starling almost three weeks ago, and still had not
returned. I could not blame him. My quiet reclusive life was beginning to chafe his
young shoulders. Starling's stories of life at Buckkeep, painted with all the skill of her
minstrel ways, created pictures too vivid for him to ignore. So I had reluctantly let her
take him to Buckkeep for a holiday, that he might see for himself a Springfest there, eat
a carris-seed-topped cake, watch a puppet show, mayhap kiss a girl. Hap had grown
past the point where regular meals and a warm bed were enough to content him. I had
told myself it was time I thought of letting him go, of finding him an apprenticeship with
a good carpenter or joiner. He showed a knack for such things, and the sooner a lad
took to a trade, the better he learned it. But I was not ready to let him go just yet. For
now I would enjoy a month of peace and solitude, and recall how to do things for
myself. Nighteyes and I had each other for company. What more could we need?
Yet no sooner were they gone than the little house seemed too quiet. The boy's
excitement at leaving had been too reminiscent of how I myself had once felt about
Springfests and the like. Puppet shows and carris-seed cakes and girls to kiss all brought
back vivid memories I thought I had long ago drowned. Perhaps it was those memories
that birthed dreams too vivid to ignore. Twice I had awakened sweating and shaking
with my muscles clenched. I had enjoyed years of respite from such unquiet, but in the
past four years, my old fixation had returned. Of late, it came and went, with no pattern
I could discern. It was almost as if the old Skill magic had suddenly recalled me and was
reaching to drag me out of my peace and solitude. Days that had been as smooth and
alike as beads on a string were now disrupted by its call. Sometimes the Skill-hunger ate
at me as a canker eats sound flesh. Other times, it was no more than a few nights of
yearning, vivid dreams. If the boy had been home, I probably could have shaken off the
Skill's persistent plucking at me. But he was gone, and so yesterday evening I had given
in to the unvanquished addiction such dreams stirred. I had walked down to the sea
cliffs, sat on the bench my boy had made for me, and stretched out my magic over the
waves. The wolf had sat beside me for a time, his look one of ancient rebuke. I tried to
ignore him. "No worse than your penchant for bothering porcupines," I pointed out to
him.
 Save that their quills can be pulled out. What stabs you only goes deeper and
festers. His deep eyes glanced past mine as he shared his pointed thoughts.
Why don't you go hunt a rabbit?
You've sent the boy and his bow away.
"You could run it down yourself, you know. Time was when you did that."
Time was when you went with me to hunt. Why don't we go and do that, instead of
this fruitless seeking? When will you accept that there is no one out there who can hear
you? just have to ... try.
Why? Is my companionship not enough for you?
It is enough for me. You are always enough for me. I opened myself wider to the
Wit-bond we shared and tried to let him feel how the Skill tugged at me. It is the magic
that wants this, not me.
Take it away. I do not want to see that. And when I had closed that part of myself