"Mercedes Lackey - EM 3 - The Serpents Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

creativity in there, and she paused a moment to sniff the heavenly,
familiar aromas appreciatively. Gopal had reacted to the presence of
the modern iron stove set into the arch of the fireplace with tears
of joy-though many of his countrymen preferred to cook over a tiny
charcoal fire, Gopal was an artist and appreciated good tools. With
so many thousands of British soldiers and civilians going out to
Colonial Service and returning with a hunger for the foods they had
grown accustomed to, it was a simple matter for Gopal to procure
virtually any spice or foodstuff he required for them all to eat the
way they had at home.
Home. Odd how the other Eurasians she had met would speak of Britain
as Home-a "home" they had never seen-with as much longing as the
expatriates. Home for Maya was and always would be India, the place
where she had been born and where she had spent most of her life. How
could you long for a place you had never even seen?
She stepped through the French doors into the warmth of her
conservatory-which had required the lion's share of her inheritance
to build-and was almost Home.
A little judicious use of magic had caused the flowering vines
planted around the walls of the conservatory to grow at an
accelerated pace, hiding the brickwork and the view of the houses on
all sides. Passion flowers flung their great starburst blooms against
the green of the vines. In bloom at all times and seasons, they
filled the air with perfume, as did the jasmine, both day-and night-
blooming. A fountain and generous pool added warm humidity and the
music of falling water, the hot-water pipes around the perimeter a
tropical heat. Here were the flowers she loved, and here, too, were
her pets-
Not pets. Friends.
They rushed to greet her as soon as she set food on the gravel of her
path-first the pair of mongooses, Sia and Singhe, romping toward her
with their peculiar humpbacked gait. Rhadi, the ring-necked parrot,
dove for her right shoulder, long tail trailing out behind him like a
streamer, while the saker falcon Mala dropped down onto her left.
Neither so much as scratched her skin, so soft footed were they, and
though Mala was death incarnate to the sparrows, starlings, and
pigeons, he would sooner starve than touch a feather of Rhadi's head.
The peacock Rajah strode toward her with more dignity, his tail
spread for her admiration. And last of all, Charan, her little
monkey, sprang into her arms as soon as she held them out for him.
Only the owl, named Nisha, whose round eyes seemed to stare straight
into one's heart, did not stir from her slumber in the hollow of a
dead oak tree that showed what a fine garden had once stood here.
Maya had left it there for the benefit of her birds, who all found it
a fine place to perch, and the vines twined around it just as happily
as they climbed the brick of the walls, giving it a kind of new life.
"And have you been good?" she asked them all, as the mongooses romped
around her ankles and the monkey put his arms around her neck,
chattering softly into her ear. The falcon gave her a swift touch of
his beak by way of a caress, and took off again to land in the tree.