"Andre Norton - Oak, Yew, Ash & Rowan 1 - To The King A Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

stinging insects that tormented everyone in the Bog. Even Joal called Zazar "Wysen-wyf," and Ashen had
heard the grudging respect in his voice.

"How goes it?" Kazi asked from behind her. Ashen jumped, startled.
"I think it is nearly done," she said. "You know that better than I do. It's at the point where you should
tend it now." She smiled sweetly, knowing that the mixture needed at least another full hour of stirring but
not willing to let this chance for release pass. "Zazar wouldn't be pleased if it got ruined."

Kazi scowled, but took the stirring-stick. Ashen was free now to go and occupy herself with more
agreeable tasks.

First, she had to change her clothes. When she worked at the kettle, she wore an old tattered shift made
of the remnants of a woven reed- fluff blanket so that any splashes would not harm her, or ruin the
lupper-skin garments Zazar had painstakingly made for her.

These garments were, she knew, finer than those worn by the villagers, having been made only from
hides taken from very young luppers, then tanned by Zazar's art to a suppleness that rivaled traders'
cloth. She slipped out of the shift and wriggled into the leggings. Still bare to the waist, she fastened on
the armor, made from small squares of turtle shell, that covered her legs from ankle to knee. It was
scarred in several places by the fangs of serpents, thwarted in their attempts to sting her. Then she tied up
her buskins and carefully cross-gaitered the entire arrangement so that it fit snugly and would not hamper
her movements. She noted that the armor was almost too short to reach her knees; she had been growing
again. She and Zazar would have to add another strip of shell pieces to the top very soon.

She slipped the lupper-skin tunic over her head, and then she was dressed. She debated on whether to
add an over-tunic the way Zazar was always telling her to do, and decided against it. The days were not
yet cool enough to make it necessary to wear the outer garment. She did, however, slip a shell- bladed
knife into the top of her leg armor. From a shelf she took down a wooden jar filled with the salve that
repelled the worst of the biting insects of the Bog and rubbed it into her skin. Once, she had forgotten
and had been stung so severely that she had been sick for several days. She shook another jar, the one
that held trade-pearls, and realized there was only a single pearl left in it. So that was where Zazar had
gone. When she went to deal with the Traders, she always took all the pearls but one, left for luck and to
bring more to the jar.

Ashen's errand was now plain. She picked up a woven basket and escaped out the back way. Nobody
could fault her for going pearl- hunting. Also, she might gather a few of whatever foodstuffs came to
hand. Nobody had to know that she was, in reality, just getting away from the ever-present work, the
chores, and especially Kazi.

Ashen had not been allowed to run wild. There were lessons, sometimes given painfully, which she had
absorbed over the years. After all, Zazar had claimed her as an apprentice. And to that learning, Ashen
had taken as those in a lean time welcome a feast.

Learning, however, had early awakened her curiosity. And above all, she wanted to know why Zazar
went alone, and where, journeying over the wilder parts of the

Bog as if she had some secret goal. Not all of her travels involved the Traders.

Ashen decided that perhaps, daringly, she would expand her borders today, go just a little way beyond
the limits Zazar had set on where she could explore safely.