"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 04 - Dragonspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

Odd, how our folk stories do seem to be pretty much alike, with sorcerers, dragons, and some sort of
evil ugly being.тАЩ

тАШExcept this isnтАЩt a tale, but a memory.тАЩ

тАШTrue.тАЩ Elaeno had a thoughtful sip of his ale from the tankard cradled in his enormous hands. тАШWell, if
they werenтАЩt his people, then heтАЩs from some race or other that lives near our big-nosed friends.тАЩ
 тАШWhat is clear is that he died violently and in anger and hatred. It might be enough to make his spirit
flee at the death moment and stray far enough away to get caught up in the wrong sort of birth vortex.тАЩ

тАШSo it seems. And it was his ill-luck that the womb that caught him was kin to Tieryn Benoic.тАЩ

тАШWho by all accounts was the last man in the kingdom to understand what a strange fish his wifeтАЩs
sister had netted.тАЩ Nevyn shook his head in bafflement. тАШWell, when heтАЩs stronger weтАЩll try the fire-vision
again, but I think me weтАЩd better wait some days.тАЩ

тАШHe couldnтАЩt take the strain right now, truly. How goes the other hunt?тАЩ

тАШFor our murdering troublemaker? Very badly indeed. For a while there I thought I was on his trail,
but heтАЩs disappeared. The stinking gall of him, trying to attack the child! If I get my claws into him, IтАЩll
tear him limb from limb, I swear it.тАЩ

тАШHe doubtless knows it, too. Once he realized that you were looking for him, he probably ran off
somewhere to hide.тАЩ Elaeno considered the problem for a moment. тАШWell, maybe if heтАЩs properly scared,
heтАЩll leave us alone.тАЩ

тАШAlways full of hope and raw optimism, arenтАЩt you? No doubt heтАЩll lie quiet for a while, but heтАЩll come
back. His kind always does, like a witchтАЩs curse.тАЩ

After being in attendance on the King for two long months, both pleading his cousin RhodryтАЩs cause
and tending to business of his own, Blaen, Gwerbret Cwm Peel, was profoundly relieved to ride home to
his own city of Dun Hiraedd. With the fall harvest his taxes were coming in, and he spent a pleasurable
pair of days playing the role of the rough country lord, standing round his ward with the chamberlain and
bailiffs and counting up the pigs and chickens, cheeses and barrels of apples, sacks of flour (both white
and barley,) tuns of mead and ale, as well as the occasional hard coin that was his due. He had a private
word or a jest for every man who came to deliver his taxes, whether he was a lordтАЩs chamberlain riding
ahead of a pair of laden ox-carts or a local farmer carrying a wicker cage of rabbits on his back and a
sack of flour in his arms.

Yet soon enough he left the taxes to his highly efficient staff and decided instead to make a small
progress among his vassals. There were many lords that he hadnтАЩt seen since the spring at the great feast
of Beltane, and he liked to keep a personal eye on potential squabblers and grumblers. He had another
reason, as well: to look for some likely parcel of land, at least ten farmsteadsтАЩ worth, to bestow on
RhodryтАЩs woman, Gilyan, Cullyn of CerrmorтАЩs daughter, along with letters patent of nobility. Although,
with a good half of his demesne wilderness, finding the land would be easy, enticing the free farmers to
work it was another matter indeed. What counted now, though, was that Jill have land and a title of her
own; the income would be superfluous once she was married to Rhodry and heтАЩd been installed in
Aberwyn.

Since his wife, Canyffa, was pregnant, Blaen left her behind to rule dun and rhan in his stead and took