"Robin Hobb - Tawny Man 2 - Golden Fool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

both Skill and Wit, but as someone to guide him through the rapids of
adolescence to manhood. I did not lack for people who cared about me, nor for
folk I deeply cherished. But for all that, I stood more alone than ever I had before.
The strangest part was my slow realization that I chose that isolation.
Nighteyes was irreplaceable; he had worked a change on me in the years that
we had shared. He was not half of me; together, we made a whole. Even when
Hap came into our life, we regarded him as a juvenile and a responsibility. The
wolf and I were the unit that made the decisions. Ours was the partnership. With
Nighteyes gone, I felt I would never again share chat arrangement with any
other, animal or human.
When I was a lad, spending time in the company of Lady Patience and her
companion, Lacey, I often overheard their blunt appraisals of the men at court.
One assumption Patience and Lacey had shared was that a man or woman who
had passed their thirtieth year unwed was likely to remain so. тАШSet in his ways,тАЩ
Patience would declare at the gossip that some greying lord had suddenly begun
to court a young girl. тАШSpring has turned his head, but sheтАЩll find soon enough
there is no room in his life for a partner. HeтАЩs had it all his own way too long.тАЩ
And so I began, very slowly, to see myself. I was often lonely. I knew that my
Wit quested out for companionship. Yet that feeling and that questing were like a
reflex, the twitching of a severed limb. No one, human or animal, could ever fill
the gap that Nighteyes had left in my life.
I had said as much to the Fool during a rare moment of conversation on our
way back to Buckkeep. It had been one of the nights when we had camped
beside our homeward road. I had left him with Prince Dutiful and Laurel, the
QueenтАЩs huntswoman. They had huddled around the fire, making the best of the
cold night and sparse food. The Prince had been withdrawn and morose, still raw
with the pain of losing his bond-cat. For me to be near him was like holding a
previously burned hand near a flame; it woke all my own pain more sharply. So I
had made the excuse of getting more wood for the fire and gone apart from them
all.
Winter was announcing its approach with a dark and chill evening. There were
no colours left in the dim work!, and away from the firelight I groped like a mole
as I searched for wood. At last I gave it up and sat down on a stone by the
creekside to wait for my eyes to adjust. But sitting there alone, feeling the cold
press in around me, I had lost all ambition to find wood, or indeed to do anything
at all. I sat and stared, listening to the sound of the running water and letting the
night fill me with its gloom.
The Fool came to me, moving quietly through the darkness. He sat down on
the earth beside me and for a time we said nothing. I hen he reached over, set a
hand on my shoulder and said, тАШI wish there were some way I could ease your
grieving.тАЩ
It was a useless thing to say, and he seemed to feel that, for after those words
he was silent. Perhaps it was the ghost of Nighteyes who reproached me for my
surly silence to our friend, for after a time I groped for some words to bridge the
dark between us. тАШIt is like the cut on your head, Fool. Time will heal it, but until it
does all the best wishes in the world cannot make it heal faster. Even if there
were some way to disperse this pain, some herb or drunkenness rhat would
numb it, I could not choose it. Nothing will ever make his death better. All I can
look forward to is becoming accustomed to being alone.тАЩ
Despite my effort, my words still sounded like a rebuke, and worse, a self-