"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 06 - A Time Of Omens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

Star Goddesses themselves! This isnтАЩt making sense again. Listen, young Marka, sometimes the gods just
donтАЩt want us to know the future. ThatтАЩs all there is to it. DonтАЩt you pay one bit of attention to anything
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IтАЩve said this morning, and as for your, money, come back after dark and IтАЩll try again for free.
Sometimes letting the sun set on a reading changes things.тАЭ

тАЬThank you, but I canтАЩt. WeтАЩll be putting on our show once itтАЩs dark.тАЭ

тАЬAh. YouтАЩre one of that bunch fromMainIsland, then?тАЭ

тАЬYes. I do the slack wire. I mean, I used to.тАЭ She stopped herself just in time from venting all her
bitterness on this sympathetic if hired ear. тАЬI juggle now.тАЭ

As she hurried away, Marka tried to leave the reading behind, but its bad aura hung round her like a wet
cloak. Nothing, it seemed, was going right these days, not even a simple thing like getting her fortune told.
Although Luvilae was the capital of Zama Ma├▒ae, the southernmost island in the Orystinnian archipelago,
at a mere twenty thousand inhabitants it was not the sort of place where a wandering troupe of acrobats
could make its fortune. Marka wondered why her father had brought them there, but then, these days her
father did a lot of things that made no sense. She felt a constant dread, a line of ice down her back, a
knowledge that she refused to face. He promised, she would think, it couldnтАЩt be that again.

She forced her mind away from old memories with a wrench of will. SheтАЩd been sent into town, after all,
for more important reasons than just hearing her fortune. She bought a chunk of roast pork on a stick and
wandered round, nibbling her meal and looking over the other street performers at the fair. The only
jugglers she saw were clumsy; there were no slackrope walkers at all. Although she found a band of
tumblers, they couldnтАЩt compete with the complex routines that the men in her troupe performed. Most of
the solitaires were musicians. Overall, the best show she saw in that first look round featured trained
monkeys and apes.

As she was buying herself a piece of sugared cake, she noticed a small crowd gathering off to one side
in the shade of a big plane tree. The cake seller gestured with snow-white fingers, all sticky from her
wares.

тАЬIf thatтАЩs the barbarian, you should take a look at him. Puts on a good show, though I swear the manтАЩs
demented!тАЭ

Marka went over, paying as much attention to the cake as anything, since it was impossible to eat
without getting sugar all over her chin. She found a spot off to one side, but at first she could only see
scarves flying into the air above the heads of the crowd and hear the fellowтАЩs patter, a running mix of
topical jokes and sheer nonsense, all delivered in a musical voice without any foreign accent whatsoever.
She assumed that his barbarism was nothing more than a good costume until she wormed her way closer
to the front.

For a moment she could only gawk openmouthed. Never in her life had she seen anyone so pale, as if
heтАЩd been bleached like a strip of linen soaked in lemon juice and left in the summer sun. His skin was a
light pinky-beige, and his hair, as fine and straight as silk thread, was the silvery color of moonbeams with