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

Kerwin's reign to the reign of the Lady Sorren there is a gap in the
scrolls."
Once Kerris had been under the illusion that it would be
exciting to be in a war. He no longer thought so. "Was that the Lady
Sorren who brought the chearis to Tornor?"
"There has been only one Sorren of Tornor," Josen said.
Kerris nodded. He remembered. Josen had read him the history
from the scroll. Sorren of Tornor had named a cheari as Yardmaster,
and during her reign (and after it, during the reign of her daughter
Norres), Tornor had been a gathering-place for chearis.
"Where did they come from?" he asked.
Josen scowled. "You know the legend. The chearis came from the
west, from Vanima, the land of always summer."
"How did the Lady Sorren get them to Tornor?"
"It's not in the record," said Josen. He snorted. "All the
historians agree that the earliest chearis were southerners. Yet the
legend of Vanima persists. Even now the chearis speak of it as if it
were a real place." He picked up his brush and pointed it at Kerris
like a dagger. "It's very frustrating."
"What is?"
 "That the records should be incomplete."
Kerris took a piece of paper from his own stack. The sheets
were heavy and coarse, made of pressed linen scraps and river reeds.
The gray tinge of it made him think of Paula. She was getting old. He
hoped the incident in the kitchen had not troubled her too much. She
worried about him.... She had brought him north after his mother's
death, and though she never said it, he knew she had stayed in Tornor
for his sake.
"Who was the first cheari?" he said.
Josen scratched his nose with the wooden end of his brush. "We
don't know," he said. "The chearis may -- but they don't talk to
scholars." He grew severe. "Records that are not written are not to
be trusted. Spoken histories are too easily distorted into legend and
myth."
Kerris smiled. He had heard this lecture before.
"For example," Josen said, "there is a passage in the history
of the reign of the Lady Sorren that suggests _she_ was a cheari.
Later in the same scroll it also states she was a messenger, a member
of the green clan."
"Couldn't she be both?" Kerris said.
"It's very unlikely." Josen was stern. "Why should an heir of
Tornor join the messenger clan? Some scribe was careless, and now
we'll never know the truth of it -- because an inattentive
apprentice wrote a word wrong."
Kerris grinned at him. "If the black clan had its way, no one
would do anything without writing it down."
"History is important," the old man said.
"Yes," Kerris agreed. Privately he wondered if anything would
be done if the world worked Josen's way.
You will never make a scholar, said his inner voice.