"Elizabeth Lynn - Chronicles of Tornor 2 - The Dancers of Arun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lynn Elizabeth A)

break your neck," he said. "Don't you know better than to fight a
cheari?"_
_Ilene said, at his back, "They've burned our breakfast, Kel.
Let's leave."_
His vision blurred. He smelled bread. He was back. Paula stood
in front of him, bristling like a mother cat protecting a kitten. The
scullions were all watching. The chief cook was sputtering at the old
woman. "I'll have no fits taken in my kitchen!"
Kerris said, "I'm all right."
Paula turned. Her eyes searched his face. He was sorry she had
seen it. "It's nothing," he said. He walked toward the entrance to
the hall. The scullions murmured, clumped together like puppies. The
Egg swore at them, and they hopped out of his way.
The great hall of Tornor was big enough to hold six hundred
men without crowding. Kerris rested against a wall of it for a
moment. As always after a fit, he felt just slightly disoriented. He
leaned on a tapestry. It showed a scene from some old battle. Josen
would know which one. Kerris did not.
The doors to the hall were open. Men from the barracks,
rubbing sleep from their eyes, and men just off watch, bulky in their
layers of wool and leather, were coming in. Dogs with sleek fur and
pale narrow heads ran about and around them -- wolfhounds, they
were, though there were few wolves left on the steppe. A hunting
party last fall had brought in one mangy yearling. They had hung the
skin from the castle wall and all the small boys from Tornor village
had come to stare at it.
Someone opened the leather curtain. The smell of fresh bread
drifted into the hall. The men elbowed each other. Kerris' appetite
had gone. He walked down the lane beside one of the long tables and
came face to face with the lord of the Keep.
He bowed. "Good morning, uncle," he said.
Morven, the nineteenth lord of Tornor Keep, was brisk and
stocky, with the bright yellow hair and pale complexion of his line.
Kerris had not inherited it. "Good morning, nephew," he said. "Did
you wake as the watch changed?" Kerris nodded. Morven did not know
(or pretended that he did not know) that Kerris sometimes slept in
the barracks. "I wish my soldiers were as dedicated." It was meant to
be praise.
"Thank you." Ousel, the second watch commander, strode up.
Immediately Morven turned to speak with him. Kerris, dismissed, went
on out of the hall. He thought, At least he has the decency not to
laugh in my face.
Crossing the inner ward to the stair to the Recorder's Tower,
he felt inside his skull for the skill that linked him with his
brother. As ever, it eluded him. He could not make it work, any more
than he could stop it.
In the shadow of the sundial a trio of children played the
paper-scissors-rock game. Kerris slowed as he passed them. It was one
of the few games he, the one-armed child, had been able to play, and
he had gotten so adept at knowing what the others would choose that