"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 01 - Daggerspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

Since no one wanted to come to a tavern with fever in the back room, the big half-round of the
alehouse was empty, the long wooden tables standing forlorn in the dim firelight. Macyn sat Jill down at a
table near the fire, then went to get her something to eat. Just behind her was a stack of ale barrels, laced
with particularly dark shadows. Jill was suddenly sure that Death was hiding behind them. She made
herself turn around and look, because Da always said a warrior should look Death in the face, but she
was glad when there was nothing there. Macyn brought her a plate of bread and honey and a wooden
cup of milk. When Jill tried to eat, the food seemed to turn dry and sour in her mouth. With a sigh,
Macyn rubbed his bald spot.

тАЬWell now,тАЭ he said. тАЬMaybe your da will ride our way soon.тАЭ

тАЬI hope so.тАЭ

Macyn had a long swallow of ale from his pewter tankard.
 тАЬDoes your doll want a sip of milk?тАЭ he said.

тАЬShe doesnтАЩt. SheтАЩs just rags.тАЭ

Then they heard the priestess, chanting a long sobbing note, keening for the soul of the dead. Jill tried
to make herself feel brave, then laid her head on the table and sobbed aloud.

They buried Mama out in the sacred oak grove behind the village. For a week, Jill went every
morning to cry beside the grave until Macyn finally told her that visiting the grave was like pouring oil on a
fireтАФshe would never put her grief out by doing it. Since Mama had told her to mind what he said, Jill
stopped going. Soon custom picked up again in the tavern, and she was busy enough to keep from
thinking about Mama all the time.

Local people came in to gossip, farmers stopped by on market day, and every now and then
merchants and peddlars paid to sleep on the floor for want of a proper inn in the village. Jill washed
tankards, ran errands, and even served the ale when the tavern was crowded at night. Whenever a man
from out of town came through, Jill would ask him if heтАЩd ever heard of her father, Cullyn of Cerrmor, the
silver dagger. No one ever had any news at all.

The village was in the northmost province of the kingdom of Deverry, the greatest kingdom in the
whole world of AnnwnтАФor so Jill had always been told. She knew that down to the south was the
splendid city of Dun Deverry, where the High King lived in an enormous palace. Bobyr, however, where
JiU had spent her whole life, had about fifty round houses, made of rough slabs of flint packed with earth
to keep the wind out of the walls. On the side of a steep Cerrgonney hill, they clung to narrow twisted
streets so that the village looked like a handful of boulders thrown among a stand of straggly pine trees.
In the little valleys among the hills, farmers wrestled small fields out of the rocky land and walled their
plots with the stones.

About a mile away was the dun, or fort, of Lord Melyn, to whom the village owed fealty. Jill had
always been told that it was everyoneтАЩs Wyrd to do what the noble-born said, because the gods had
made them noble. The dun was certainly impressive enough to JillтАЩs way of thinking to have had some
divine aid behind it. It stood on the top of the highest hill, surrounded by both a ring of earthworks and a
ramparted stone wall. A broch, a round tower of slabbed stone, rose in the middle and loomed over the
other buildings inside the walls. From the top of the village, Jill could see the dun and Lord MelynтАЩs blue
banner flapping on the broch.