"Juliet E. McKenna - Aldabreshin 2 - Northern Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E)

NORTHERN STORM
Juliet E. McKenna
An Orbit Book
First published in Great Britain by Orbit, 2004 Copyright й Juliet E. McKenna 2004
ISBN 1 84149 167 5
Typeset in Ehrhardt by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Polmont, Stirlingshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham pic, Chatham, Kent
Orbit
An imprint of
Time Warner Book Group UK Brettenham House
Lancaster Place London WC2E 7EN
For Ernie and Betty,
for all they do to ease my working life
and all they do to enrich our sons' lives.
CHAPTER ONE
What does this sunrise bring, beyond another day of trying to read all the faces turned to me? What
omens might there be as to whether or not I'll meet whatever challenges are set before me before sunset?
Will I fail? Who will I fail - myself or these people who never foresaw that I would become their ruler?
Idly rubbing a hand over his close-trimmed beard, he glanced from side to side to see if any portent
offered itself in any arc of the compass, firstly in the pale skies of the early morning, the clouds iridescent
as mother-of-pearl. Dropping his gaze, he studied the indigo waters broken by ruffles of foam and
mysterious swirls of lighter blue. The waters rose and fell as gently as a sleeping child's chest.
No sign of any sea serpent lurking in the channels between coral and sand. No whale rising unexpectedly
from the distant deeps further out. No detritus floating in our path as portent of good or ill. There are no
omens that I can see. The future is as bare of signs to guide me as the empty ocean.
A dutiful voice interrupted his fruitless survey.
'We're nearly there, my lord Chazen Kheda,' the helmsman announced, sitting alert on his stool on the
raised platform at the stern of the little galley. One brown hand rested on the steering oar, his dark eyes
fixed on the man standing in the prow. The ship's master kept an alert watch for reefs and skerries
beneath the waves, his dun cotton tunic and trousers flattened against his muscular body by the breeze. In
the belly of the ship, the rowers bent and hauled and sent the Yellow Serpent speeding
through the water, three men to a bench, each with his own long oar lashed to its thole-pin. With the
crew of the warlord's vessel drawn from the most practised oarsmen, they barely needed the regular
drone of the piper's flute amidships to keep their strokes even, making light of pulling the long, lithe vessel
against the wind.
'We're in good time, as always.' Kheda eased his shoulders beneath the weight of his chain-mail hauberk
and adjusted the silk scarf around his neck before raising his voice so that the rowers on the open deck
below could hear him. 'The Yellow Serpent has served me well throughout this voyage.'
As I have served this domain, I hope. But this voyage is all but over and I will have a whole new set of
challenges to meet when I return to what I suppose I must call my home now.
'Seen any omens for our day?' A man whose bald head barely topped Kheda's shoulder held out a round
brass and steel helmet with a chain-mail veil hanging down to protect the wearer's neck and shoulders.
Diamonds around the gold brow band spat defiant fire back at the strengthening sun.
'I won't want that till we land.' Kheda relished the breeze brushing his short-cropped, tightly curled hair
as he kept his eyes on the rapidly approaching drifts of foam that ringed the few scraps of sandy land in
the midst of the reefs and sandbanks. Sparkling beaches circled dense clumps of midar shrub pierced
here and there with stands of nut palms. The trees waved exuberant fronds of lush new growth, still
drawing on the water hoarded by the earth since the drenching of last year's rains.