"Robert Jordan - Ravens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

were. Not one made a try to steal anything from the tables of
food. That was just unnatural.

Come to think of it, the birds were not looking at the trestle
tables at all. Or at the tables where women were working with the
wool. They were watching the boys herding sheep. And the men
shearing sheep and carrying wool. And the boys carrying water,
too. Not the girls, or the women, just the men and boys. She
would have bet on it, even if her mother did say she should not
bet. She opened her mouth to ask the Wisdom what it meant.

"Don't you have work to do, Egwene?" Nynaeve said
without turning around.

Egwene jumped in spite of herself. Nynaeve had been doing
that ever since last fall, knowing that Egwene was there without
looking, and Egwene wished she would stop.

Nynaeve turned her head then, and looked at her over one
shoulder. It was a level look, the sort Egwene had been trying on
Kenley. She did not have to hop for Nynaeve the way she would
for the Wisdom. Nynaeve was just trying to make up for Mistress
Barran doubting her work. Egwene thought about telling her that
Mistress Ayellin wanted to talk to her about a pie. Studying
Nynaeve's face, she decided that might not be a good notion.
Anyway, she had been doing what she had vowed not to, slacking
off, standing around watching Nynaeve and the Wisdom.

Making as much of a curtsey as she could while holding her
bucket - to the Wisdom, not Nynaeve - she turned away. She was
not hopping, and not because Nynaeve looked at her. Certainly
not. And not hurrying, either. Just walking - quickly - to get back
to her work.

Still, she walked quickly enough that before she realized it,
she was back among the tables where the women were working
wool. And face to face across one of the tables with her sister
Elisa.

Elisa was folding fleece for baling, and making a bad job of
it. She seemed distracted, barely even noticing Egwene, and
Egwene knew why. Elisa was eighteen, but her waist-length hair
was still tied with a blue kerchief. Not that was she was thinking
about getting married - most girls waited at least a few years - but
she was a year older than Nynaeve. Elisa often worried aloud
about why the Women's Circle still thought she was too young. It
was hard not to feel sympathy. Especially since Egwene had been
thinking about Elisa's predicament for weeks, now.

Well, not about Elisa's problem, exactly, but it had set her