"George R. R. Martin - Arms of the Kraken" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

wet, that hair; no blade had touched it since the sea had raised him up. ll
draped his shoulders like a ragged, ropy cloak, and fell down past his waist.
Aeron wove strands of seaweed through it, and through his tangled, uncut
beard.

His drowned men formed a circle around Ihe dead boy, praying. Norjen
worked his arms whilst Rus knell astride him. pumping on his chest, but all
moved aside for Aeron. He pried apart the boy's cold lips with his fingers,
and gave Emmond the kiss of life, and agait and again, until the sea cam┬л
tfirehinji from his mouth. The boy began to cough and spit, and his eyes
blinked open, full of fear.
Another one returned It was a sign of the Drowned God's favor, men said.
Every other priest lost a man from time to lime, even Tarle the
Thrice-Drowned, who had once been thought so holy that he was picked to
crown a king. But never Aeron Greyjoy. He was the Damphair, who had seen
the god's own watery halls and returned to tell of it. "Rise," he told the
sputtering boy, as he slapped him on his naked back. "You have drowned
and been returned lo us. What is dead can never die."

"But rises." The boy coughed violently, bringing up more water. "Rises
again." Every word was bought with pain, but that was the way of the
world; a man must fight to live. "Rises again." Emmond staggered to his
feet. "Harder. And stronger."

"You belong to the god now," Aeron told him. The other drowned men
gathered round, and gave him each a punch and a kiss to welcome him to
brotherhood. One helped him don a roughspun robe of mottled blue and
green and grey. Another presented him with a driftwood cudgel. "You
belong to the sea now, so the sea has armed you."
Aeron said. "We pray that you shall wield your cudgel fiercely, against all
the enemies of our god."

Only then did the priest turn to the three riders, watching from their
saddles. "Have you come to be drowned, my lords?"
The Sparr coughed. "I was drowned as a boy," he said, "and my son upon
his name day."

Aeron snorted. That Steffarion Sparr had been given to the Drowned God
soon after birth he had no doubt. He knew the manner of it too, a quick dip
into a tub of seawater that scarce wet the infant's head. Small wonder the
ironborn had been conquered, they who once held sway everywhere the
sound of waves was heard. "That is no true drowning," he told the riders.
"He that does not die in truth cannot hope to rise from death. Why have
you come, if not to prove your faith?"

"Lord Gorold's son came seeking you with news." The Sparr indicated the
youth in the red cloak.
The boy looked to be no more than six-and-ten. "Aye, and which are you?"
Aeron demanded.