"Kay, Guy Gavriel - Last Light Of The Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

She came abruptly forward, moved past him to the table in the
middle of the room, long-striding for a woman. He caught a scent
about her as she went: pine resin, something else, an animal smell.
She picked up some of the herbs, threw them in a bowl, took that
and crossed to the back table for something beside the raised
chair, put that in the bowl, too. He couldn't see what. With the
hammer she began pounding and grinding, her back to him.

Still working, her movements decisive, she said suddenly, "You
had no thought of what you might do, son of Thorkell, son of
Frigga? You just stole a horse. On an island. Is that it?"

Stung, Bern said, "Shouldn't your magic tell you my thoughtsЧor
lack of them?"

She laughed again. Glanced at him briefly then, over her shoulder.
The eyes were bright. "If I could read a mind and future just from a
man entering my room, I'd not be by the woods on Rabady Isle in a
cabin with a leaking roof. I'd be at Kjarten Vidurson's hall in
Hlegest, or in Ferrieres, or even with the Emperor in Sarantium."

"Jaddites? They'd burn you for pagan magic."

She was still amused, still crushing herbs in the stone bowl. "Not if
I told their future truly," she said. "Sun god or no, kings want to
know what will be. Even Aeldred would welcome me, could I look
at any man and know all of him."

"Aeldred? No he wouldn't."

She glanced back at him again. "You are wrong. His hunger is for
knowledge, as much as for anything. Your father may even know
that by now, if he's gone raiding among the Anglcyn."

"Has he? Gone raiding there?" He asked before he could stop
himself.

He heard her laughing; she didn't even look back at him this time.

She came again to the near table and took a flask of some-thing.
Poured a thick, pasty liquid into the bowl, stirred it, then poured it all
back into the flask. Bern felt afraid still, watching her. This was
magic. He was entangling himself with it. Witchery. Seithr. Dark as
the night was, as the way of women in the dark.

His own choice, though. He had come for this. And it seemed she
was doing something.

There was a movement, from over by the fire. He looked quickly.
Took an involuntary step backwards, an oath escaping him.