"L. E. Modesitt - Spellsong 4 - The Shadow Sorceress" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

1

Two sorceresses stood beside the scrying pool in the domed outbuilding that lay to the south of the main
keep of Loiseau. The taller woman had fine white-blonde hair, hair that could have belonged to the young
woman of nineteen that her appearance conveyed. Her thin and finely drawn face was without blemish,
without lines, and her piercing blue eyes were clear. Only the fineness of Anna's features attested to her
true age. Her figure was nearly as slender, and far more girlish than that of the smaller redhead who stood
next to her.



Anna eased into a straight-backed chair behind the small writing table, then looked at the redhead.
"Secca... our good Lord Rebero has requested that you visit him at El-held, preferably within the next
two weeks."
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"Doubtless he has yet another heir or lord for me to meet, Lady Anna." Secca's mouth offered a
sardonic smile as she perched on the tiled edge of the scrying pool. Part of her smile was because Anna
had never been able to say "Robero" without a twist to her lips. Then Secca had difficulty herself. When
Secca had been growing up in Falcor under Anna's tutelege, Robero had been "Jimbob." Only when
he'd became Lord of Defalk had he decided "Jimbob" was too undignified and changed his name to
Robero. "After all these years, he would still have me con-sorted."



"You aren't that old." Anna added, "He doesn't under-stand you, but he does care for you."



`That may be, for he understands women not at all. He understands but strength and power, and that is
why he respects you, lady."



Anna sighed gently. "I wish it were otherwise. Certainly we tried."



Secca nodded sympathetically. While Anna almost never used Lord Jecks' name. Anna often said "we"
when referring to what the two had accomplished for Defalk in the less than half score of years when
Anna had been re-gent and sole ruler of Defalk. The former regent spoke seldom of Lord Jecks, but
Secca had seen the lamps of Anna`s rooms still lit late into many nights over the ten years since his death.
While Anna and Jecks had been friends and certainly lovers, consorting had been out of the question.
That Secca had understood ftom the beginning, when Anna had effectively adopted her after the deaths
of Secca' s parents, for Jecks had been a powerful lord in his own right, and the grandsire of Lord
Robero, during the time when Anna had been Sorceress-Regent for the un-derage Robero.