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

easy for him by explaining what it wanted. Sometimes he never did find out, and was left to muddle
through like any other mortalwith the added disadvantage of inscrutable messages banging inside his skull.
His patience gave way; he leaned forward in the saddle, and the big stallion leaped into a gallop. The
six riders, who knew their king's moods, and hadn't been very happy at their reception at the Outlanders'
hands themselves, let him go. He swerved away from the line that would take him directly to the camp.
The man on the golden dun, who had been riding on the king's right, soothed his mount with one
hand. "Nay, we do not follow him this time."
The man at his left glanced across at him and nodded briefly. "May the Just and Glorious be with
him."
The youngest of the riders snorted with laughter, although it was not pleasant laughter. "May the Just
and Glorious be with all of us. Damn the Outlanders!"
The man on the dun frowned and said, "Innath, watch your tongue."
"I am watching it, my friend," replied Innath. "You may be glad you cannot hear what I am thinking."
The king had disappeared in the heat glaze rising from the sand by the time the little group topped the
rise and saw the pale tents of their camp before them, and resigned themselves to telling those who
awaited them what had occurred during the meeting with the Outlanders.
Harry blinked and recognized the boy at her elbow. "Thank you," she said absently, and he led the
pony away, looking anxiously over his shoulder at the way the desert men had gone, and evidently
grateful to be leaving himself. She shaded her eyes with her hand a moment, which only served to throw
the fire of her headache into greater relief. She looked up at the men on the verandah and saw them
moving uncertainly, as if they were waking up, still half under the influence of unpleasant dreams. She felt
the same way. Her shoulder creaked when she dropped her arm again. At least it will be a little cooler
inside, she thought, and made her way up the steps. Cassie and Beth, their mounts led away after
Harry's, followed her.
Luncheon was a quiet meal. All those who had played a part in the morning's performance were
there. Rather, Harry thought, as if we can't quite bring ourselves to separate yet, not because we have
any particular reason to cling to one another's company. As if we'd just been
through тАж something тАж together, and are afraid of the dark. Her headache began to subside with the
second glass of lemonade and she thought suddenly: I don't even remember what the man looks like. I
stared at him the entire time, and I can't rememberexcept the height of him, and the scarlet sash, and
those yellow eyes. The yellow eyes reminded her of her headache, and she focused her thoughts on the
food on her plate, and her gaze on the glacial paleness of the lemonade pitcher.
It was after the meal had been cleared awayand still no one made any move to gothat Jack Dedham
cleared his throat in a businesslike manner and said: "We didn't know what to expect, but by the way
we're all sitting around and avoiding one another's eyes" Harry raised hers, and Jack smiled at her
briefly"we don't have any idea what to do with what we've got."
Sir Charles, still without looking up, said, as if speaking his thoughts aloud: "What was it, Jack, that
you said to himjust at the end?"
Harry still had her eyes on Dedham, and while his voice as he answered carried just the right
inflection, his face did not match it: "It's an old catch-phrase of sorts, on the
let-us-be-friends-and-not-part-in-anger-even-though-we-feel-like-it order. It dates from the days of the
civil war, I thinkbefore we arrived, anyway."
"It's in the Old Tongue," said Sir Charles. "I didn't realize you knew it."
Again Dedham's eyes suggested something other than what he said: "I don't. As I said, it's a
catch-phrase. A lot of ritual greetings are in the Old Tongue, although almost nobody knows what they
mean any more."
Peterson said: "Good for you, Jack. My brain wasn't functioning at all after the morning we'd spent.
Perhaps you just deflected him from writing off the Outlanders altogether." Harry, watching, saw the
same something in Peterson's face that she had wondered at in Dedham's.
Sir Charles shrugged and the tension was broken. "I hope so. I will clutch at any straw." He paused.