"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 19 - Looters of Tharn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

There were hard grim years in Tharn, too many of them. But the new people survived. Occasionally they
survived by the skin of their teeth, as when the newly discovered grain crop failed and nearly half the
year's babies starved to death because there was no milk for them, either human or animal. But they
survived, and that was enough of a miracle for Blade.

"What is a miracle?" asked Krimon.

"Something-something that it seems really couldn't have happened, when you think it over," said Blade,
smiling.

Krimon nodded. "That is a good way of saying it. But the people live, there is no doubt of that."

"They are all-'the people'-now?"
"Yes. It seemed the best name, when we had all become one and few could even remember what they
were before the coming of Mazda."

"You were wise."

Much of the mating and child-rearing had been communal at first, to save as much labor as possible for
building, farming, herding, fighting, and everything else that had to be done. Over time, some women
came to prefer to bear the children of one man rather than another. A man came to prefer seeing his
children born to some women more than to others. As the struggle for survival became less desperate,
families of one man and three or four women slowly emerged. One woman would care for the half-dozen
children while the others worked.

It was not polygamy, for the man was far from supreme. It was not really anything for which there was a
handy name. But that was not important. The important thing was that it worked.

There was also Zulekia, Beloved of Mazda, and her son. There was no doubt that the child was
Mazda's. Too many people knew of Mazda's coi with his Beloved. From the moment when it was
known that she was carrying Blade's child, Zulekia was a woman set apart.

She had the best of care and feeding when her time came.

She alone of all the women was exempted from bearing any more children. She had fulfilled her destiny
in bearing the child of Mazda. She was much in demand to honor other women's birthings with her
presence, but that was all.

The son was called Rikard, and he was so strong and healthy that he might have survived and flourished
even without all the care he had. But it was accepted from the first that when he reached manhood he
would be King in Tharn, for who would dare to give orders to the son of Mazda?

It was also obvious that he would have his choice of any and all the women of the people. There was no
woman who would turn down a chance to bear a child descended from Mazda and his Beloved.

Rikard's oldest children were just past their second birthday when the Lesser War came upon Tharn.

"More of the Pethcines survived than we thought," said Krimon. "They fled deeper into the Gorge and
bred sons who grew to be warriors filled with a desire for vengeance. They did not hope to conquer us