"Mercedes Lackey - Last Herald Mage 2 - Magic's Promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

anonymous, overly-neat look of a room without a current occupant. I suppose
that's only logical, he thought reluctantly. They haven't been occupied, much.
I've been living out of my packs for the last year, and before that I was only
here for a couple of weeks at a time at most. Gods.
It was a comfortable, warm-and quite average-room. Like any one of a
dozen he'd tenanted lately, when he'd had the luxury of a guest room in some
keep or other. Sparsely furnished with two chairs, a table, a desk and stool,
and a wardrobe, a curtained, canopied bed in the corner. That bed was
enormous-his one real indulgence: he tended to toss restlessly when-and if-
he slept.
He smiled wryly, thinking how more than one person had assumed he'd
wanted that particular bed for another reason entirely. They'd never believe it
if I told them Savil gets more erotic exercise than I do. Oh, well. Maybe it's a
good thing I don't have a lover; he'd wake up black and blue. Always
assuming I didn't strangle him by accident during a nightmare.
But other than that bed, the room was rather plain. Only one window, and
that one without much of a view. It certainly wasn't the suite he could have
commanded-
But what good is a suite when I hardly see Haven, much less my own
room?
He put his feet up on the low, scarred table between the chairs, in
defiance of etiquette. He could have requisitioned a footstool-
But somehow I never think of it until I'm five leagues down the road
headed out. There's never enough time for-for anything. Not since Elspeth
died, anyway. And gods-please let me be wrong about Randale.
His eyes blurred; he shook his head to clear them. Only then did he see
the pile of letters lying beside his feet, and groaned at the all-too-familiar seal
on the uppermost one. The seal of Withen, Lord of Forst Reach and Vanyel's
father.
Twenty-eight years old, and he still makes me feel fifteen, and in disgrace.
Why me? he asked the gods, who did not choose to answer. He sighed again,
and eyed the letter sourly. It was dauntingly thick.
Hellfire. It-and every other problem-can damned well wait until after I've
had a bath. A bath, and something to eat that doesn't have mold on it, and
something to drink besides boiled mud. Now, did I leave anything behind the
last time I was here that was fit to wear?
He struggled to his feet and rummaged in the wardrobe beside his bed,
finally emerging with a shirt and breeches of an old and faded blue that had
once been deep sapphire. Thank the gods. Not Whites, and I won't be
wearing Whites when I get home. It's going to be so nice to wear something
that doesn't stain when you look at it. (Unfair, nagged his conscience-properly
treated, the uniform of Heraldic Whites was so resistant to dirt and stains that
the non-Heralds suspected magic. He ignored the insistent little mental voice.)
Although I don't know what I'm going to do for uniforms. Dear Father would
hardly have known his son, covered in mud, stubbled, ashes in his hair.
He emptied the canvas pack on the floor and rang for a page to come and
take the mishandled uniforms away to be properly dealt with. They were in
exceedingly sad shape; stained with grass and mud, and blood-some of it his
own-some were cut and torn, and most were nearly worn-out.
He'd have taken one look and figured I'd been possessed. Not that the