"Mercedes Lackey - Brightly Burning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

he might start to get routes mixed up when he had to recall more than one.
At the end of the class, the pupils stood up as their teacher left the room-Owyn poking him in the
back when he wasnтАЩt quick enough-and a new teacher entered.
The next three classes were in language: Hardornen, Rethwellan, and Border dialects. LanтАЩs head
was stuffed full before the break came for lunch, and he wondered how he was ever going to keep the
languages from running together.
At the sound of the noon bell, the other students jumped up and stampeded for the door. Owyn
solemnly took Lan in charge and led him down to the first floor, down a staircase packed full of strange
people. Owyn didnтАЩt really have to show Lan the refectory where they all took their lunch. Every pupil in
the school was headed in that direction, all of them chattering at the tops of their lungs. The two boys just
went along, carried on the stream.
When they got to the door of the refectory, though, Owyn deserted him, squirming past students
who were younger than either of them, and vanishing.
Lan got out of the traffic to have a look around. This was an enormous room, high-ceilinged and
echoing, with the dark timbers of the support beams showing starkly against the white plaster of the
ceiling itself. Up above the wainscoting were windows surrounded by handsome carved wood, but from
head height on down there were only plain oak panels. There were four long plain oak tables running the
length of the room, with chairs, plates, and silverware marking each place. That seemed a little odd to
Lan; he would have expected benches, until he saw how that even with the spacing between each student
enforced by the seating they managed to poke and elbow each other. There seemed to be no particular
order in which people were seated, although there were obviously seats that were preferred. Those
LanтАЩs age and older had taken over the seats at the ends of the tables nearest the kitchen doors; it was
obvious why, as they were already being served beef and bread and new peas while the rest were still
getting seated. The seats least in favor were farthest from the kitchen, and those near the fireplaces,
where stray breezes sent random puffs of smoke out into the room from the fire burning there.
Friends sat together, forming little cliques; sideways glances and whispered comments
discouraged approach. Owyn was in one of those, though his group was in a set of the less-favored
seats. Lan hesitated, then took an unoccupied chair at the end of one of the tables. By the time he got
started on his lukewarm meal, the students at the head of the table were already devouring their second
and third portions.
Across from Lan sat a very plain, lumpish girl who kept her head down and didnтАЩt look up from
her plate. Next to him was a nervous boy much younger than Lan, eleven or twelve, perhaps, who bolted
his food so quickly Lan was afraid he was going to choke, and vanished from the table, casting
backward glances over his shoulder as he scuttled away.
Shortly Lan found out why he had been in such a hurry to leave. One of the oldest boys, a
square-jawed, stereotypically handsome specimen of about eighteen with crisply cut dark-blond hair and
indolent dark-blue eyes, strolled down from his exalted seat and surveyed the lesser beings at the lowest
end of the table with his hands clasped behind his back, looking for all the world as if he was surveying
the offerings at a horse fair.
He took his time about it. Lan decided that discretion was the proper tactic to pursue, and quietly
continued to eat, ignoring the young manтАЩs arrogant gaze. He could feel eyes burning a hole between his
shoulder blades, though, and he didnтАЩt like the feeling in the least.
The chattering at this end of the table quieted, and now Lan sensed that there were a great many
more eyes on him.
тАЬSo, this is the new one.тАЭ A hand fell on LanтАЩs shoulder, and he restrained the impulse to slap it
away. тАЬI hear they put you with the babies, boy. What do you have to say for yourself?тАЭ
Lan kept silent, but the arrogant one was joined by three or four of his peers, lesser copies out of
the same mold, who rose from their seats and gathered around him. The biggest of them grabbed LanтАЩs
chin and wrenched his head around.
тАЬSpeak when youтАЩre spoken to, country boy,тАЭ his harasser said in a deceptively pleasant voice.