"Ursula K. Leguin - Olders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

The woman stood at the foot of the bed, and presently he turned to her and
gave
a quiet nod that said, Very well, as well as can be expected.

"He seems scarcely to breathe," she whispered. Her eyes looked large in her
face
knotted and clenched with anxiety. "He's breathing," the escort assured her.
"Slow and deep. Dema, my name is Hamid, assistant to the Queen's physician,
Dr.
Saker. Her majesty and the Doctor, who had your husband in his care, desired
me
to come with him and stay here as long as I am needed, to give what care I
can.
Her majesty charged me to tell you that she is grateful for his sacrifice,
that
she honors his courage in her service. She will do what may be done to prove
that gratitude and to show that honor. And still she bade me tell you that
whatever may be done will fall short of his due."
"Thank you," said the Farmwife, perhaps only partly understanding, gazing only
at the set, still face on the pillow. She was trembling a little.

"You're cold, dema," Hamid said gently and respectfully. "You should get
dressed."

"Is he warm enough? Was he chilled, in the boat? I can have the fire laid--"

"No. He's warm enough. It's you I speak of, dema."

She glanced at him a little wildly, as if seeing him that moment. "Yes," she
said. "Thank you."

"I'll come back in a little while," he said, laid his hand on his heart, and
quietly went out, closing the massive door behind him.

He went across to the kitchen wing and demanded food and drink for a starving
man, a thirsty man leg-cramped from crouching in a damned boat all night. He
was
not shy, and was used to the authority of his calling. It had been a long
journey overland from the city, and then poling through the marshes, with
Broad
Isle the only hospitable place to stop among the endless channels, and the sun
beating down all day, and then the long dreamlike discomfort of the night. He
made much of his hunger and travail to amuse his hosts and to divert them,
too,
from asking questions about how the Husbandman did and would do. He did not
want
to tell them 'more than the man's wife knew.

But they, discreet or knowing or respectful, asked no direct questions of him.
Though their concern for Farre was plain, they asked only, by various