"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

She rose, and the humans fell back in a well-trained wave, one scampering to
open the door for her, the rest already falling to the task of cleaning up the
room and the debris of preparation.

The white-and-silver door closed behind her, leaving her in a white hallway
lit by silver lanterns in the shape of swans, and paved with the purest white
marble Alara had ever seen.

She glided over the cool stone at a sedate walk, the only sound being the hiss
of her skirt over the spotless paving, her thin doeskin slippers permitting her
to feel that there were no cracks or crevices in the seamless marble.

She kept her pace to a swaying, sedate walk. No well-bred elven maid ever
produced so vulgar a sound as a footfall, nor hurried her steps, no matter how
urgent the cause.

Poor things, Alara thought pityingly. Unless they had the power, the spirit,
and the temper to challenge the customs, they were as much pawns and
slaves as their humans.
The elvenkind as a whole respected one thing: power. Those that had the
power made the rules apply to everyone but themselves. Those that didn't
were forced to obey the rules decreed by the others.

Those rules made elven females the property of the males of their Clan--
subject entirely to the will and whim of the ruling male, and used as trade-
markers in an elaborate dance of matrimonial alliances.

Only when a maiden demonstrated both a powerful gift (of magic, intrigue, a
fine mind), and the will to use what she had ruthlessly, then she could escape
the destiny her sex decreed for her.

Alara trod the smooth marble and recalled those she knew of who had
escaped that destiny. There were female Clan heads; V'jann Ysta er-Lord
Daarn, for one, who came to power by defeating the head of V'jann in a
mage-duel that had lasted three days. V'lysle Kartaj er-Lord Geyr, who
inherited on the death of her brother, and then revealed that it had been she
who had masterminded his rise in Council. V'dann Triana er-Lord Falcion,
who simply outlived all the other, hedonistic heirs, defeated pretenders in
conventional duels, and settled down to shorten her own lifespan by means
of every vice that had killed off her relatives. V'meyn Lysha er-Lord Saker,
who some suspected of the quiet assassination of the husband she had been
sent to wed, as soon as the ink was dry on the marriage vows... though
nothing could be proved against her.

As many as a quarter of the Clan heads were female, and treated as absolute
equals in power and Council. Alara suspected that many more were content
to rule from behind the facade of a male spouse or relative.

But for the rest, their lives were spent close-cloistered until they delivered
their virginity to the appropriately selected spouse, cloistered further until the