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

water on their heads; others were stowing the stacks of baskets waiting to bring the year's greatest
bounty up from the deep.
And sometimes the pearl oysters vanish altogether. What manner of omen would that be?
The tremor that ran through Kheda had nothing to do with the surge beneath his feet as the Yellow
Serpent's rowers bent over their oars. Pearl skiffs scattered as the galley headed towards a wide beach
where a veritable village had been thrown up. Huts built from woven panels of palm fronds were roughly
thatched with bundles of coarse grass tied with tangling vines. The greenery was barely faded but Kheda
knew it wouldn't be long before the punishing sun parched roofs and walls to a yellowy brown.
Then the pearl harvest will be over and the huts will be left to the sand lizards and the sooty shrews
hunting sickle snakes and scorpions. The pearl gulls and coral fishers will plunder the roofs for their own
nests and prey on unwary shrews to feed their young. The dry season will bleach these huts to frail straw
and the rainy season's storms will rip them apart. There'll be barely a sign that there was anything here
when the last full moons of the year ahead of us will summon the divers to search the reefs for the shifting
pearl beds.
I wonder if I will be here to see next year's harvest.
The wind shifted, bringing a startling stench. 'Saedrin save me!' Dev barely reached the stern before he
lost his breakfast noisily over the rail.
Kheda exchanged a rueful grin with the helmsman,
trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. 'You always tell yourself it can't be as bad as you remember.'
And perhaps that's a sign: to concentrate on the here and now rather than indulging in idle speculations
about future paths.
'Then you realise it's worse.' The helmsman's weather-beaten brown face grimaced as he hauled on the
steering oar in response to a signal from the shipmaster.
The rowers pulled on their oars with a will, even those gagging on their own nausea. The Yellow Serpent
accelerated past the bare sandy reef that was the source of the stink. Masked with swathes of cotton
cloth, one of the few men ashore waved. Another was more concerned with throwing an old dry shell at
a gull darting down from the cloud of birds wheeling above, squawking their outrage as mats of woven
palm fronds frustrated their efforts to plunder the vast tubs the men were guarding. Emerald finches and
dusky gnatcatchers swooped unopposed, gorging on the red-eyed flies that hung around the tubs in
smoky swarms.
As the Yellow Serpent passed the reeking islet and the breeze brought clean, salt-scented air, Kheda
dipped a cup of water from a lidded barrel lashed to the light galley's rearmost signal mast. He passed it
to Dev, who was still leaning over the stern, pale beneath his coppery tan.
'You people can't just open your oysters with a sharp knife and dig out the pearls?' Dev swilled water
around his mouth and spat sourly over the rail.
'Not when we want every pearl, right down to the seed and dust pearls.' Kheda watched the water
turning from mysterious green to crystal clarity over the brilliant sands as the shipmaster skilfully guided
the vessel into the shallows. 'The only way to get those is to let maggots strip the oysters clean.'
'We're sailing west again after this?' the barbarian growled beneath his breath.
'No, back to the residence. I told you.' Kheda shot the scowling Dev a warning look, his voice low and
rapid. 'After all they've suffered in the last year, these people need the reassurance of correct observance
of every ritual. As warlord, I have to be there when the new-year stars come into alignment. It's my duty
to read the skies for the domain and give judgement on any other portent.'
'What portents do you think they will bring you? Lizards caught in bizarre places?' Dev mocked. 'Or
patterns imagined in a pot of beans?'
'Just keep your mouth shut on your ignorance.' Kheda didn't hide his contempt.
'Some new year it'll be, without so much as a sniff of liquor,' Dev muttered, sipping at his water with
distaste. 'What then?'
'We'll see.' Kheda smiled thinly. 'In the omens of the heavenly and the earthly compasses.'
He left Dev and went to stand beside the helmsman's chair. The rowers had slowed, listening for the