"Jay Lake - Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

than any storm-tossed buffet of the ship. Should I have leapt into the sea as we
arrived here, I wondered? There had been nowhere for me to swim to in the harbor.
Even less so the street. Federo had told me of cobbles, but I had never seen a stone
road before.

Despite the marvels, I still wanted to go home.

The FactorтАЩs house had high walls of blue stone, with streets around it on all
sides. My village could have fit within those walls with room for rice and soy to
grow. We passed through a main gate, then a second gate, to an inner court. The
carriage stopped and Federo brought me out.

тАЬFrom here you are among women,тАЭ he said, kneeling to meet my eyes at a
level. тАЬI am the only man you will speak with, except for the Factor himself. Use
your head, little one.тАЭ

тАЬI have a name,тАЭ I whispered, thinking of EnduranceтАЩs bell. Federo had never
used it on the ship, not once, though IтАЩd said it to him a hundred times.

He ruffled my hair. тАЬNot until the Factor gives you a name.тАЭ

Then the carriage rattled away and I stood alone next to a pomegranate tree
that reminded me of my home. The inner court was cobbled like the streets outside,
with the tree growing from a little round-walled patch of soil. The house around the
court had a low porch, with a screened upper balcony topped by a copper roof with
the blue walls towering beyond. I could see other trees above the copper, as if there
were more courts around me.

Though I saw no one, I heard throaty laughter.

тАЬI am here,тАЭ I called out in my own words. Then I said it again in FederoтАЩs
words.
 After a while a woman not much taller than I, but fat as any house duck with
broad lips to match, waddled out from the shadowed porch. She was swathed in
coarse black cloth, which covered even her head. тАЬSo youтАЩre the new one,тАЭ she
said, in FederoтАЩs words. тАЬIтАЩll have no more!тАЭ

I did not understand the rest. When I tried to ask what she meant, she slapped
me hard upon the ear. I knew then that she intended me not to speak my own words.

I resolved to learn her words so well that eventually this duck woman could
never order me about again.

****

Years passed without me having a name. I sat in little rooms with fat,
glowering women, all pale as Federo, who variously shouted and whispered at me. I
learned to spin, weave and sew in ways that no one at home had ever imagined. I
learned to cook, and to select good jewels from among cheap glass, and how a lady
mounted a horse. They even taught me reading and mathematics, giving me old