"04 - The Chaos Balance.palmdoc.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

Nylan flushed slightly, then coughed. "All right. When I'm uncertain, I try to feel out others before saying anything."
"I know. What do you feel?"
"Ryba's angry. She's looking for things to get angry at me for. We've always had to haggle with Skiodra. Didn't you have to haggle on all those trading runs you made last year?"
"Everyone in Candar likes to haggle, I think."
"She didn't even want me to come, and then she said something about remembering my blades-as if I hadn't dealt with Skiodra before or that ambush they set up with the herder. She's suddenly treating me like a child."
The healer nodded, hunched into her jacket against the late afternoon wind.
"I don't like it. It's like the way she treated Gerlich, except she hasn't drawn steel against me."
"She can't do that. You may be a pain in her Marshal's ass, dear, but all her guards love you, and they'd like to do it from closer than they do." Ayrlyn paused. "Don't let them."
"I've gotten that word." He grinned, but only momentarily. "That's going to be more of a problem."
"I know. What do you think you should do?"
The smith shook his head. "I don't like it. I've darkness near killed myself making a safe haven here, and it's not going to be pleasant any longer. It may not even be safe for me much longer. I'm not a Gerlich, and trying a coup would only destroy Westwind, even if I could do it. And that would only make things worse for the children ... for everyone but us, probably."
"You're right there." Ayrlyn paused by the practice yard, well up the road from the end of the causeway. Her eyes drifted toward a last drooping snow lily that arched out of one of the few remaining patches of snow on the north side of the loose-stacked stones of the practice yard wall. "Can't you just avoid Ryba?"
"How? Westwind isn't that big. If I do what she says, she'll push for me to do more and more-or make me less and less useful-like with this smith training bit. She's good at maneuvering, and pretty soon I'll look either as obstinate as Gerlich or as useless as Nerliat was. At least, I think so. What do you think?"
"It doesn't matter what I think. I can just be a meek healer and stay in the background. You've got a lot of support from Siret, Istril, even Huldran and Llyselle, though," mused Ayrlyn.
"Right," Nylan snorted. "Saryn sides with Ryba, and she trains most of the new guards-or Ryba does. Maybe . . . what? Seven of forty guards think I'm good for something. Most of the new guards dislike or distrust men, and they accept me because I'm not like the men they knew-but I'm a man. Just how long will it be before there are a hundred guards, and half don't even know me?"
"That would take a while."
"Like being buried in a slow avalanche or being tied down and consumed by ants over the years." Nylan winced at his own image.
"You don't sound happy. What do you want to do?"
"It's not a question of wanting. It's a question of seeing the storm on the horizon and finding cover." He laughed, once, harshly. "Why is it so hard? I could see the need for a tower before anyone else, and I built it. I can see the need to leave, and I avoid facing it. What's the difference?"
"Three children?"
"That... and, I told you before, deep inside ..." He swallowed. "It's not exactly ... easy ... to face an unknown world alone. I don't like it. I don't know where to go, and it feels like everything I've done is almost wasted."
"Is it?"
Nylan shook his head. "Dyliess, Kyalynn, Weryl-they'll be safe."
Ayrlyn frowned at the last name, but did not speak.
"They'll be safe," Nylan repeated. "It isn't easy to admit that. I don't know about us, though."
"I'm glad you said us ... but. . . you never asked me."
"That's where you've been guiding me, dear. Don't think I didn't notice."
"You could have asked ..." A glimmer of a smile flitted around the corners of her mouth.
"All right. I am planning to descend into the hot depths of the demon's hell to avoid jeopardizing everyone else and my children. Would you like to accompany me on this foolhardy expedition?"
"I thought you'd never get around to inviting me."
Nylan put his right arm around Ayrlyn as they walked.
"You're cold."
"I'm always cold up here. Why do you think I agreed?"
"Not for my charm?"
"Not just for your charm."
A wry smile settled on Nylan's face for a moment, then vanished as his eyes took in the upper level of Tower Black, and the window to the Marshal's quarters.


XV

ZELDYAN HANDED THE scroll to Fornal with her free hand. The dark-haired regent slowly read through it, occasionally stopping and puzzling out an unfamiliar word. As he read, the blond woman rocked Nesslek on her knee, steering his fingers away from the goblet on the table before her.
The gray-haired Gethen looked toward the window, then rose and walked to it, sliding it wide open. The cool breeze carried the damp scent of recent spring rain into the tower room. For a moment, Gethen looked across Lornth to the orange ball of the sun that hung over the river to the west of the hold. Then he walked back to the table, where he refilled his goblet before reseating himself.
"This is one of your best," Zeldyan offered, taking a sip of the dark red wine, before setting her goblet down more toward the center of the table, out of Nesslek's reach.
"It is good. Even the Suthyans paid extra for it."
Fornal squinted, as though he wanted to shut out the conversation and concentrate on the scroll. His frown became more pronounced as his eyes traveled down the scribed lines.
"Lygon of Bleyans? I hope you made him pay triple."
"Only double," Gethen said. "Lady Ellindyja found him useful."
"I know."
"The lord of Cyador ... how ... to suggest that the copper mines of south Cerlyn have always belonged to Cyador... to ask for tribute and immediate return ..." stuttered Fornal, letting the scroll roll up with a snap. "This is an insult!"
"Yes," agreed Zeldyan. "It is. Yet they gave up the mines, ages back."