"Kay,.Guy.Gavriel.-.Tigana" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

The other man laughed aloud. "In that case," he chuckled, genuinely amused, "you can give me a drink if you like while I tell you about my two marriageable daughters and the other two who are on their way to that age sooner than I'm ready for. I'm Rovigo d'Astibar, master of the Sea Maid just in from down the coast in Tregea."
Devin grinned and stretched across the bar for another glass: The Bird was far too crowded to bother trying to catch the owner's rheumy eye, and Devin had his own reasons for not wanting to signal the man.
"I'll be happy to share the bottle with you," he said to Rovigo, "though your wife is unlikely to be well pleased if you press your daughters upon a traveling musician."
"My wife," said Rovigo feelingly, "would turn ponderous cartwheels of delight if I brought home a cowherd from the Certandan grasslands for the oldest one."
Devin winced. "That bad?" he murmured. "Ah, well. We can at least drink to your safe return from Tregea, and in time for Festival by a fingernail. I'm Devin d'Asoli bar Garin, at your service."
"And I at yours, friend Devin, not-as-young-as-you-look. Did you have trouble getting a drink?" Rovigo asked shrewdly.
"I was in and out of more doorways than Morian of Portals knows, and as dry when I left as when I'd entered." Devin rashly sniffed the heavy air; even among the odors of the crowd and despite the lack of windows, the tannery stench from outside was still painfully discernible. "This would not have been my first or my tenth choice as a place for drinking a flask of wine."
Rovigo smiled. "A sensible attitude. Will I seem eccentric if I tell you I always come straight here when the Sea Maid is home from a voyage? Somehow the smell speaks of land to me. Tells me I'm back."
"You don't like the sea?"
"I am quite convinced that any man who says he does is lying, has debts on land, or a shrewish wife to escape from and-" He paused, pretending to have been suddenly struck by a thought. "Come to think of it . . ." he added with exaggerated reflectiveness. Then he winked.
Devin laughed aloud and poured them both more wine. "Why do you sail then?"
"Trade is good," Rovigo said frankly. "The Maid is small enough to slip into ports down the coast or around on the western side of Senzio or Ferraut that the bigger traders never bother with. She's also quick enough to make it worth my while running south past the mountains to Quileia. It isn't sanctioned, of course, with the trade embargo down there, but if you have contacts in a remote enough place and you don't dawdle about your business it isn't too risky and there's a profit to be made. I can take Barbadian spices from the market here, or silk from the north, and get them to places in Quileia that would never otherwise see such things. I bring back carpets, or Quileian wood carvings, slippers, jeweled daggers, sometimes casks of buinath to sell to the taverns-whatever's going at a good price. I can't do volume so I have to watch my margins, but there's a living in it as long as insurance stays down and Adaon of the Waves keeps me afloat. I go from here to the god's temple before heading home."
"But here first," Devin smiled.
"Here first." They touched glasses and drained them. Devin refilled both.
"What's news in Quileia?" he asked.
"As a matter of fact, I was just there," Rovigo said. "Tregea was a stop on the way back. There are tidings, actually. Marius won his combat in the Grove of Oaks again this summer."
"I did hear about that," Devin said, shaking his head in rueful admiration. "A crippled man, and he must be fifty years old by now. What does that make it-six times in a row?"
"Seven," Rovigo said soberly. He paused, as if expecting a reaction.
"I'm sorry," Devin said. "Is there a meaning to that?"
"Marius decided there was. He's just announced that there will be no more challenges in the Oak Grove. Seven is sacred, he's proclaimed. By allowing him this latest triumph the Mother Goddess has made known her will. Marius has just declared himself King in Quileia, no longer only the consort of the High Priestess."
"What?" Devin exclaimed, loudly enough to cause some heads to turn. He lowered his voice. "He's declared ... a man ... I thought they had a matriarchy there."
"So," said Rovigo, "did the late High Priestess."
Traveling across the Peninsula of the Palm, from mountain village to remote castle or manor, to the cities that were the centers of affairs, musicians could not help but hear news and gossip of great events. Always, in Devin's brief experience, the talk had been only that: a way to ease the passing of a cold winter's night around an inn fire in Certando, or to try to impress a traveler in a tavern in Corte with a murmured confiding that a pro-Barbadior party was rumored to be forming in that Ygrathen province.
It was only talk, Devin had long since concluded. The two ruling sorcerers from east and west across the seas had sliced the Palm neatly in half between them, with only hapless, decadent Senzio not formally occupied by either, looking nervously across the water both ways. Its Governor remained paralytically unable to decide which wolf to be devoured by, while the two wolves still warily circled each other after almost twenty years, each unwilling to expose itself by moving first.
The balance of power in the peninsula seemed to Devin to have been etched in stone from the time of his first awareness. Until one of the sorcerers died-and sorcerers were rumored to live a very long time-nothing much would or could come of khav room or great hall chatter.
Quileia, though, was another matter. One far beyond Devin's limited experience to sort out or define. He couldn't even guess what might be the implications of what Marius had now done in that strange country south of the mountains. What might flow from Quileia's having a more than transitory King, one who did not have to go into the Oak Grove every two years and there, naked, ritually maimed, and unarmed, meet the sword-wielding foe who had been chosen to slay him and take his place. Marius had not been slain, though. Seven times he had not been slain.
And now the High Priestess was dead. Nor was it possible to miss the meaning in the way Rovigo had said that. A little overawed, Devin shook his head.
He glanced up and saw that his new acquaintance was staring at him with an odd expression.
"You're a thoughtful young man, aren't you?" the merchant said.
Devin shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. "Not unduly. I don't know. Certainly not with any insight. I don't hear news like yours every afternoon. What do you think it will mean?"
One answer he was not to receive.
The tavern-keeper, who had quite efficiently succeeded in ignoring Rovigo's intermittent signaling for another bottle of wine now strode to their end of the bar, black anger visible on his features even in the darkened room.
"You!" he hissed. "Your name Devin?"
Taken aback, Devin nodded reflexive agreement. The tavern-keeper's expression grew even more malevolent.
"Get out of here!" he rasped. "Your Triad-cursed sister's outside. Says your father's ordered you home and-Morian blast you both!- that he's minded to turn me in for serving an underage. You gutter-spawned maggot, I'll teach you to put me at risk of being shut down on the eve of the Festival!"
Before Devin could move, a full pitcher of soured black wine was flung into his face, stinging like fire. He scrambled back, wiping at his streaming eyes, swearing furiously.
When he could see again it was to observe an extraordinary sight.
Rovigo-not a big man-had moved along the bar and had grabbed the 'keeper by the collar of his greasy tunic. Without apparent effort he had the man pulled halfway over the bar top, feet kicking ineffectually in mid-air. The collar was twisted to a degree sufficient to cause the helpless tavern-owner's face to begin turning a mottled shade of crimson.
"Goro, I do not like my friends being abused," Rovigo said calmly. "The lad has no father here and I doubt he has a sister." He cocked an eyebrow at Devin who shook his dripping head vehemently.
"As I say," Rovigo continued, not even breathing hard, "he has no sister here. He is also patently not underage-as should be obvious to any tavern-owner not blinded by swilling buckets of his own slop after hours. Now, Goro, will you placate me a little by apologizing to Devin d'Asoli, my new friend, and offering him two bottles of corked vintage Certando red, by way of showing your sincere contrition? In return I may be persuaded to let you have a cask of the Quileian buinath that's sitting on the Sea Maid even now. At an appropriate price or course, given what you can extort for that stuff at Festival-time."
Goro's face had accomplished a truly dangerous hue. Just as Devin felt obliged to caution Rovigo, the tavern-owner gave a jerky, convulsive nod and the merchant untwisted the collar a little. Goro dragged fetid tavern air into his lungs as if it were scented with Chiaran mountain tainflowers and spluttered a three word apology to Devin.
"And the wine?" Rovigo reminded him kindly.
He lowered the other man-still without any evident exertion- enough for Goro to fumble below the bar and resurface with two bottles of what certainly appeared to be Certandan red.
Rovigo let slip another notch of the tightened collar.
"Vintage?" he inquired patiently.
Goro twitched his head up and down.
"Well then," Rovigo declared, releasing Goro completely, "it appears we are quits. I suppose," he said, turning to Devin, "that you should go see who is pretending to be your sister outside."
"I know who it is," Devin said grimly. "Thank you, by the way. I'm used to fighting my own battles, but it's pleasant to have an ally now and again."
"It is always pleasant to have an ally," Rovigo amended. "But it seems obvious to me that you aren't keen on dealing with this 'sister,' so I'll leave you to do it in private. Do let me once more commend my own daughters to your kind remembrance. They've been quite well brought up, all things considered."
"I have no doubt of that at all," Devin said. "If I can do you a service in return I will. I'm with the company of Menico di Ferraut and we're here through the Festival. Your wife might enjoy hearing us perform. If you let me know you've come I'll make sure you have good places at either of our public performances, free of charge."