"Tanya Huff - Kigh 1 - Sing the Four Quarters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

for what the bards called a Walk on Water but had never gone so far as to actually make the
request.

Warming to his subject, Jon leaned forward and began sketching trade possibilities in the air.
Annice, not really interested in the cycle of wool cloth for exotica for linen back in Vidor, slid
into the light trance that would ensure memory as he expanded on his season. She had no idea if
the information would ever be of use, but under the bardic adage, wasted knowledge is wasted
lives, better to have it than not.

"тАж and if that trader from Cemandia's still up in Ohrid, I might be able to unload some on him."

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 Huff, Tanya - Sing the Four Quarters




That roused her. She'd run into a pair of Cemandian traders in Ohrid and another in Adjud. She'd
even seen a small cluster of them in the market in Vidor. In fact, she'd seen more on this latest
Walk than she had in all her previous travels combined.

Jon laughed when she mentioned it. "There's always been some trade across the border. Ohrid's
never quite managed to close the pass." Then he was off again on an unlikely tale of how he'd
bested a Cemandian in an impossible deal.

Annice slid back into trance; all Jon seemed to need was an audience and she was more than
willing to oblige. Few people realized that bards spent half their training time learning to listen.
And half of that, Annice mused as the story slid from unlikely to improbable, learning to sleep
with our eyes open.

"All right, Bard. This is where you float yer weight." Sarlo hooked the sweep oar into one armpit
and gestured ahead with her free hand. "Got a whole stretch of river here where the current
spreads out and ain't worth shit. Not to mention wind's comin' northwest and'll keep tryin' to blow
us onto the far shore. We get through it slow and sure as a rule, but since I don't want to end up
with my butt caught in ice, it's all yers."

Fingers clamped not quite white around the oar support, Annice peered off the stern. The fantail
following the riverboat was a deep gray-green; not exactly friendly-looking water. Watching the
bubbles slipping away upstream induced a sudden wave of vertigo. Annice swallowed hard and
sat down, legs crossed for maximum support and eyes closed. Thanks to the innkeeper's well-
timed hunk of bread, she'd discovered that small, bland meals at frequent intervals both remained
down and damped the nausea to merely an unpleasant background sensation. Unfortunately,
during the two days on the river, she'd found all sort of new ways to make herself sick.

"You okay?"

Annice opened her eyes and decided she could cope. "I'm fine."

"You seen a healer yet?"