"Patricia A. McKillip - Riddlemaster 2 - Heir Of Sea And Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

been in Anuin all winter, and I feel--I need to get away."
There was not a flicker of change in his eyes. He said simply, "No," and
turned to pick up his wine cup.
She stared at his back, annoyed, and discarded courtesy like an old shoe.
"Well, I'm not going to stay here and be argued over like a prize cow out of
Aum. Do you know who sent me a gift? Map Hwillion. Only yesterday he was
laughing at me for falling out of a pear tree, and now he's got his first
beard and an eight-hundred-year-old house with a leaky roof, and he thinks he
wants to marry me. You're the one who promised me to the Prince of Hed; can't
you put a stop to all this? I'd rather listen to the pig herds of Hel during a
thunderstorm than another spring council arguing with you about what to do
with me."
"So would I," Duac murmured. Mathom eyed them both. His hair had turned
iron-grey seemingly over night; his sorrow over Cyone's death had limned his
face to the bone, but it had neither tempered nor bittered his disposition.
"What do you want me to tell them," he asked, "other than what I have told
them for nineteen years? I have made a vow, binding beyond life, to marry you
to the man winning Peven's game. If you want to run away and live with Map
Hwillion under his leaky roof, I can't stop you--they know that."
"I don't want to many Map Hwillion," she said, exasperated. "I would like to
marry the Prince of Hed. Except that I don't know any more who he is, and no
one else knows where he is. I am tired of waiting; I am tired of this house; I
am tired of listening to the Lord of Hel tell me that I am being ignored and
insulted by the Prince of Hed; I want to visit Mara Croeg in Aum, and I don't
understand how you can refuse such a simple, reasonable request."
There was a short silence, during which Mathom considered the wine in his cup.
An indefinable expression came into his face; he set the cup down and said,
"If you like, you can go to Caithnard."
Her lips parted in surprise. "I can? To visit Rood? Is there a ship--" And
then Duac brought his hand down flat on the wine table, rattling cups.
"No."
She stared at him, astonished, and he closed his hand. His eyes were narrowed
slightly as he gazed back at Mathom. "He's asked me to go, but I've already
refused. He wants Rood home."
"Rood? I don't understand."
Mathom moved away from the window suddenly with an irritated whirl of sleeve.
"I might as well have the entire council in here babbling at me at once. I
want Rood to take a leave from his studies, come back to Anuin for a while;
he'll take that fact best from either Duac or you."
"You tell him," Duac said inflexibly. Under the King's eye he yielded, sat
down, gripping the arms of his chair as though he were holding fast to his
patience. "Then will you explain so I can understand? Rood has just taken the
Red of Apprenticeship; if he stays he'll take the Black at a younger age than
any living Master. He's done fine work there; he deserves the chance to stay."
"There are more riddles in the world than those in the locked books behind the
walls of that College in Caithnard."
"Yes. I've never studied riddle-mastery, but I have an idea that you can't
answer them all at once. He's doing the best he can. What do you want him to
do? Go lose himself at Erlenstar Mountain like the Prince of Hed?"
"No. I want him here."