"George R. R. Martin - Ice Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

learning everything a farmer had to know. When he was not working he would run
with his friends to the river, and have adventures. Teri ran the house and did
the cooking, and worked a bit at the inn by the crossroads during the busy
season. The innkeeper's daughter was her friend, and his youngest son was more
than a friend, and she would always come back giggly and full of gossip and
news from travellers and soldiers and king's messengers. For Teri and Geoff
the summers were the best time, and both of them were too busy for Adara.
Their father was the busiest of all. A thousand things needed to be
done each day, and he did them, and found a thousand more. He worked from dawn
to dusk. His muscles grew hard and lean in summer, and he stank from sweat
each night when he came in from the fields, but he always came in smiling.
After supper he would sit with Geoff and tell him stories and answer his
questions, or teach Teri things she did not know about cooking, or stroll down
to the inn. He was a summer man, truly.
He never drank in summer, except for a cup of wine now and again to
celebrate his brother's visits.
That was another reason why Teri and Geoff loved the summers, when the
world was green and hot and bursting with life. It was only in summer that
Uncle Hal, their father's younger brother, came to call. Hal was a dragonrider
in service to the king, a tall slender man with a face like a noble. Dragons
cannot stand the cold, so when winter fell Hal and his wing would fly south.
But each summer he returned, brilliant in the king's green-and-gold uniform,
en route to the battlegrounds to the north and west of them. The war had been
going on for all of Adara's life.
Whenever Hal came north, he would bring presents; toys from the king's
city, crystal and gold jewelry, candies, and always a bottle of some expensive
wine that he and his brother could share. He would grin at Teri and make her
blush with his compliments, and entertain Geoff with tales of war and castles
and dragons. As for Adara, he often tried to coax a smile out of her, with
gifts and jests and hugs. He seldom succeeded.
For all his good nature, Adara did not like Hal; when Hal was there, it
meant that winter was far away.
Besides, there had been a night when she was only four, and they
thought her long asleep, that she overheard them talking over wine. "A solemn
little thing," Hal said. "You ought to be kinder to her, John. You cannot
blame _her_ for what happened."
"Can't I?" her father replied, his voice thick with wine. "No, I
suppose not. But it is hard. She looks like Beth, but she has none of Beth's
warmth. The winter is in her, you know. Whenever I touch her I feel the chill,
and I remember that it was for her that Beth had to die."
"You are cold to her. You do not love her as you do the others."
Adara remembered the way her father laughed then. "Love her? Ah, Hal. I
loved her best of all, my little winter child. But she has never loved back.
There is nothing in her for me, or you, any of us. She is such a cold little
girl." And then he began to weep, even though it was summer and Hal was with
him. In her bed, Adara listened and wished that Hal would fly away. She did
not quite understand all that she had heard, not then, but she remembered it,
and the understanding came later.
She did not cry; not at four, when she heard, or six, when she finally
understood. Hal left a few days later, and Geoff and Teri waved to him