"Robin McKinley - Damar 1 - The Blue Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

be bandits in, and hunt dragons through. Its twisted shadows had always been welcome to her; when she
grew older she liked the feeling of great age that the forest gave her, of age and of a vast complicated life
that had nothing to do with her and that she need not try to decipher.
The desert, with the black sharp-edged mountains around it, was as different from what she was
accustomed to as any landscape could be; yet she found after only a few weeks in Istan that she was
falling by degrees in love with it: with the harsh sand, the hot sun, the merciless gritty winds. And she
found that the desert lured her as her own green land never hadbut what discovery it lured her toward
she could not say.
It was an even greater shock to realize that she was no longer homesick. She missed her occupation;
and even more she missed her father. She had left so soon after the funeral that it was difficult to believe
that he was dead, that he was not still riding around his estate in his shabby coat, waiting for her to return.
Then she found that she remembered her parents together again; as if her mother had died recently, or
her father five years agoor as if the difference, which had been so important, no longer mattered. She
didn't dream of honeysuckle and lilac. She remembered them with affection, but she looked across the
swirled sand and small obstinate clumps of brush and was content with where she was. A small voice
whispered to her that she didn't even want to go Home again. She wanted to cross the desert and climb
into the mountains in the east, the mountains no Homelander had ever climbed.
She often speculated about how other people saw the land here. Her brother never mentioned it one
way or another. She was accustomed to hearing the other young people refer to "that hateful desert" and
"the dreadful sun." Beth and Cassie didn't; they had lived in one part or another of Daria for most of their
lives"except the three years our mother took us Home, to acquire polish, she said"and to both of them,
Darian sun and Darian weather, whether it be on the fertile red earth of the south, with the eternal fight
against the jungle to keep the fields clear, or the cool humid plateaus of the orange plantations, or the hot
sand of the northeast Border, were simply things that were there, were part of their home, to be accepted
and adjusted to. Harry had asked them how they liked the Homeland, and they had had to pause and
think about it.
"It was very different," Cassie said at last, and Beth nodded. Cassie started to say something else,
stopped, and shrugged. "Very different," she repeated.
"Did you like it?" pursued Harry.
"Of course," said Cassie, surprised.
"We've liked all the places we've lived," said Beth, "once we made some friends."
"I liked the snow in the north," offered Cassie, "and the fur cloaks we had to wear there in the winter."
Harry gave it up.
The older people at the station seemed to put up with the land around them as they would put up with
any other disadvantage of their chosen occupation. Darian service, civilian and military, bred stoicism in
all those who didn't give up and go Home after the first few years. The Greenoughs'
making-the-best-of-it attitude was almost as tangible as mosquito netting.
Harry had once won an admission from Mr. Peterson, Cassie and Beth's father. There were several
people to dinner at the Residency that evening, among them the Petersons. Mr. Peterson had been
seated across from her at dinner, and had not appeared to pay any attention to the conversation on the
other side of the table. But later in the evening he appeared at her side. She was surprised; he spoke
rarely enough at social gatherings, and was notorious around the station for avoiding young unattached
ladies, including his daughters' friends.
They sat in silence at first; Harry wondered if she should say anything, and if so, what. She was still
wondering when he said: "I couldn't help hearing some of what that young chap next to you was saying at
dinner." He stopped again, but this time she waited patiently for him to continue and did not try to prompt
him. "I wouldn't pay too much attention, if I were you."
The young chap in question had been telling her about the hateful desert and the dreadful sun. He was
a subaltern at the fort, had been there for two years and was looking forward to his escape in two more.
The subaltern had continued: "But I wouldn't want you to think we have no change of seasons here. We