"Fifth Millennium - 01 - Shadow's Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Shirley)

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Shadow's Daughter by
Shirley Meier
Chapter One
It was spring in F'talezon, and the Blutrosh, the Blood-roses,
bloomed. The hand-sized blossoms nodded in the breeze over the
head of a four-year-old child sitting on the white stone steps in
the sunshine, pulling her tunic over her knees. The house was set
into the ground, with only the windows, the door and the roof
showing, like most of the other old houses in the Middle Quarter
of the city. Her mother called the flowers her sisters because the
newly planted bushes had first bloomed on the child's birthday.
Megan Lixandashkya sat with her arms clasped around her
knees, knowing she wasn't supposed to pull her tunic so far. She
scrunched her knees up high; it wouldn't stretch so much that
way. Her father had woven it new. Down the street one of the
drover's husbands laughed with the roheji seller as he bought
some of her pastries hot out of the oil.
Around the corner she could hear the Old Brewery Gate
rumbling open onto Brewer's Street; the horses snorting and
stamping, harness jingling as they hauled the barrels out. She
didn't like horses much, though she didn't mind their smell
mixed with the bread-rising smell of the beer.
Downstairs, inside, she could hear her mother singing, her
hands flying over the lace-frame like the Veysneya, the
Silverwings, in Koru's Temple. They flew in the light of the rose
window, and the painted faces of the Goddess, hundreds of years
old, gazed down from the smooth-polished rock walls. The
Ladyshrine down the street in the park was a tiny shrine

compared to the temple, but Megan liked the statue of Koru
there much better. Her father would take her there sometimes,
holding her hand because she was too little to walk alone and
might be lost, or stolen by those whose market was children.
Lixand Mikhailovych, called Weaver, whistled as he opened
the yard gate with one hand, balancing a sack of 'maranth flour
on one shoulder. He was average height for a Zak, four and a half
feet tall, with dark brown hair, and green eyes set in a lightly
tanned round face that smiled more easily than it frowned.
"Ness! Megan! I'm homeЕ" He laughed and caught Megan's
hand when she ran and hugged his legs. "Come on, bylashka,
little princess, help me put this in the cupboard and come for a
walk with me."
Megan would stretch her legs and trot to keep up to her papa
whenever they went on these walks, while he told her stories.
Mama always said that if he weren't a Gospozhyn, a Great
Master in the Weaver's Guild, he'd be a storyteller. Megan
always liked listening, though she didn't always understand.