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

brothers still working in the barns, but Paksenarrion did
not slow or turn until she came to the boundary stone of
her father's land. There she thrust her grandfather's sword
into the soil.
"I won't have him saying I stole it," she muttered to
herself. She turned for a last look at her home. Against
the dark bulk of the hill, she could see light at the open

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


front door, and dark figures crossing and recrossing the
light. She could hear voices calling her name, then a deep
bellow from Dorthan, and all the shapes went in at the
door and shut the light in. She was alone, outside the
house, and she knew, as well as if she'd seen him do it,
that Dorthan had barred the door against her. She shook
herself. "It's what I wanted," she said aloud. "So now I'd
better go on with it."
The rest of that night she jogged and walked down the
well-worn track from her father's farm to Three Firs,
warmed by the thought of the coming adventure. She
went over her cousin's instructions time after time, trying
to remember everything he'd said about recruiting
sergeants and mercenary companies and training and
drill. In the first light of dawn she walked into Three Firs.
Only in the baker's house did she see a gleam of light
behind closed shutters, and a plume of smoke out the
chimney. She smelled no baking bread. She could not
wait until the first baking came out unless the recruiters
were still in Three Firs. She walked on to the
marketplace. Empty. Of course, they might not be up yet.
She looked in the public barn that served as an inn.
Empty. They had left. She drew water from the village
well, drank deeply, and started off again, this time on the
wider track that led to Rocky Ford тАФ or so her cousin
had said; she'd never been beyond Three Firs.
As daylight came, she was able to make better time, but it

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


was nearly noon when she came to the outskirts of Rocky
Ford. The rich smells of cooking food from the inns and
houses nearly made her sick. She pressed on, through
what seemed to her like crowds, to the market square in
the town's center. There she saw the booth that Jornoth
had told her to look for, draped in maroon and white silk,