"Mercedes Lackey - Owl Mage 2 - Owlsight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

family out working the fields and tending the stock - Keisha grinned a little. Maybe if her parents had
known what was going to happen, they wouldnтАЩt have been so quick to leave the farmstead! Her mother
and father hadnтАЩt stood a chance against the will of the village, and theyтАЩd lost KeishaтАЩs labor at the farm
before they knew what had happened. They might have tried to fight to keep Keisha (and her two sturdy
hands) theirs alone, but the arrival of a Herald on circuit put an end to any thoughts of making the
attempt.
That golden moment was a cherished memory, the point when Keisha became something other
than тАЬordinaryтАЭ in her parentsтАЩ eyes. The Herald - oh, he was fine to look at, all white and tall on his
silver Companion. . . . He took one look at me that went right down to my bones and declared, in
a voice like a trumpet, тАЬ This girl has the HealerтАЩs Gift.тАЭ Much to KeishaтАЩs bemusement, before he
left for the rest of his circuit, he had arranged for Lord BreonтАЩs Healer, Gil Jarad, to give Keisha
instruction. Several weeks later a trader delivered into her hands copies of every book used by the
Trainees at HealerтАЩs Collegium, courtesy of that august body, and a polite note reminding everyone that
the books were worth, not a small fortune, but a rather large one. Enough to buy half the town, and
theft or harm to the books counted as a crime against the Crown! With the books had come three
sets of the pale-green robes of a Healer Trainee, lest anyone doubt her acceptance. Keisha still preferred
not to wear them, though; it seemed a pity to get them as stained and dirty as they would be if she
donned them for her regular work.
No more weeding and mowing for her; the letter that came with this library told her that she was
expected to study those books any time that she wasnтАЩt tending the ailments of man or beast, or brewing
medicines for same. She already had the skills needed to make most medications and had lacked only the
knowledge of what herbs were needed - the books supplied that, with good pictures to guide her when
she went hunting for them in the forest and fields, and detailed instructions for each preparation. Along
with the books came a box of seeds for those herbs that did well under cultivation, all carefully labeled
with planting and growing instructions. It was obvious that she was expected to become self-sufficient,
and quickly.
For a while, Keisha had used the kitchen of the family home for her workroom - and her mother
had seen that as a possible way to discourage this new career.
Mother should never have complained about my тАЬgreen messes тАЬ in her kitchen, telling
everyone she was afraid I was going to poison the family, Keisha thought, with just a touch of
self-satisfaction. I know she thought that the Council would agree that I should stop, but it had the
opposite effect!
In fact, the Council didnтАЩt wait for her to complain directly to them; the moment the Village
Council got wind of the complaints, they assigned Keisha her own workshop, a sturdy little stone building
that had once been the home of the village savior and hero, Wizard Justyn. They even went so far as to
make a special day of preparing it for her, organizing a village-wide cleanup and repair of the place,
presenting her with a cottage scoured inside and out, roof newly thatched, all the bits and pieces still
littering the interior taken out and broken into kindling. She had only to say where she wanted
workbenches and shelves, and they appeared; had only to ask for a place to lie down and a fine feather
bed and a pile of pillows and quilts showed up in the sleeping-loft. The people of ErroldтАЩs Grove had
learned their lesson about treating a Healer right, having had to do without a Healer of any kind for so
long after Wizard Justyn died.
Heady stuff for a fourteen-year-old youngster, she thought wryly, from her distant vantage of
eighteen. IтАЩm surprised my head didn тАШt get too big to fit a hat. She waved at the blacksmithтАЩs oldest
apprentice as they passed the forge; he waved absently back, but his eyes - as all the eyes of any male
over the age of thirteen - were on Shandi. I suppose the only reason it didnтАШt was that I was too busy
to get a swelled head.
She had been busy every waking moment, in fact; when she wasnтАЩt studying her books, she was
out in the forest gathering medicinal plants, on her knees in her new garden cultivating herbs, or making
preparations for Healer Gil to examine. At last, when Gil was satisfied that her skill at producing