"George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire 4 - A Feast for Crows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

George RR Martin's "A Feast For Crows"

Book 4 of "A Song of Ice and Fire"

PROLOGUE

Dragons," said Mollander. He snatched a withered apple off the ground and tossed
it hand to hand. "Throw the apple," urged Alleras the Sphinx. lie slipped an
arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bowstring.

"I should like to see a dragon." Roone was the youngest of them, a chunky boy
still two years shy of manhood. "I should like that very much."

And I should like to sleep with Rosey's arms around me, Pate thought. Me
shifted restlesslv on the bench. By the morrow the girl could well be his. I
will take her far from Oldtown, across the narrow sea to one of the Free
Cities. There were no maesters there, no one to accuse him.

He could hear Emma's laughter coming through a shuttered window-overhead.
mingled with the deeper voice of the man she was entertaining. She was the
oldest of the serving wenches at the Quill and Tankard, fourty if she was a day.
but still pretty in a fleshy sort of way. Rosey was her daughter, fifteen and
freshly flowered. Emma had decreed that Rosey's maidenhead would cost a golden
dragon. Pate had saved nine silver stags and a pot of copper stars and pennies,
for all the good that would do him. He would have stood a better chance of
hatching a real dragon than saving up enough coin to make a golden one.

"You were born too late for dragons, lad," Armen the Acolyte told Roone.
Armen wore a leather thong about his neck, strung with links of
pewter, tin. lead, and copper, and like most acolytes he seemed to believe that
novices had turnips growing from their shoulders in place of heads. "The last
one perished during the reign of King Aegon the Third."

"The last dragon in Westerns," insisted Mollander.

"Throw tine apple." Alleras urged again. He was a comely youth, their Sphinx.
All the serving wenches doted on him. Even Rosey would sometimes touch him on
the arm when she brought him wine, and Pate had to gnash his teeth and pretend
not to see.

"The last dragon in Westerns was the last dragon," said Armen doggedly. "That
is well known."

"The apple," Alleras said. "Unless you mean to eat it."

"Here." Dragging his clubfoot, Hollander took a short hop. whirled, and
whipped the apple sidearm into the mists that hung above the Hon-eywine. If not
for his foot, he would have been a knight like his father. He had the strength
for it in those thick arms and broad shoulders. Far and fast the apple flew . .
.