"Elizabeth Moon - Paksenarrion 1 - The Sheepfarmer's Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

the scroll that came with the sword and reads aloud to his
family. But first he reminds them of the day a stranger
rode up, robed and mantled in white, an old man with thin
silver hair, and handed down the box and the sword,
naked as it hangs now.
"Keep these," the stranger said, "in memory of your
daughter Paksenarrion. She wishes you to have them and
has no need of them." And though he accepted water from
their well, he would say no more of Paksenarrion,
whether she lived or lay buried far away, whether she
would return or no.
The scroll Dorthan reads is headed The Deed of
Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter of Three Firs, and many are
the tales of courage and adventure written therein. Time

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Elizabeth Moon - The Deed of Paksenarrion [vol 1] Sheepfarmer's Daughter


and again the family has thrilled to the description of
Paksenarrion in battle тАФ the littlest ones pressing close
around Dorthan's knees, and watching her sword on the
wall. They are sure it glows slightly when those tales are
read.
And always they ask, the little ones who never knew her,
what she was like. Just like that in the scroll? Always so
tall, so brave? And Dorthan remembers her face the night
she left, and is silent. One brother thinks of a long-legged
girl running down errant sheep; the youngest remembers
being carried on her shoulders, and the smell of her hair.
Besides this, legend is all they have. "She's dead," say
some. "She must be, or they wouldn't have sent her
sword."
"No," say others. "She is not dead. She is gone where she
doesn't need this sword."
And Dorthan turns to the end of the scroll, which solves
nothing... for the Deed is unfinished, ending abruptly in
the middle of a stanza.
And one of those children, the little ones, has climbed
from stool to table, and from table to mantelpiece, and
touched with a daring hand the hilt of each sword... and
then climbed down, to dream of songs and battles.




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Elizabeth Moon - The Deed of Paksenarrion [vol 1] Sheepfarmer's Daughter