"Andre Norton - WW - Horn Crown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Wool! I thought of our sorry herd of sheep. What did
we have to market? All that was ever shorn from their
backs was woven and worn by our own people and there
was never more than enough for perhaps a new kirtle, a
new under jerkin, at three or four years' time.

It was Everad who dared ask the question that was in
all our minds: "This is what you would choose, my lord,
if the lot comes to you and it is not already taken?"

"Yes," Garn said shortly. "There are other things -- "
He stopped short and none of us had the courage to ask
what those other things might be.

I stared at the lines on the bit of skin and tried to
imagine what they were meant to represent -- land and
sea, river and wide dales to welcome our plows, our small
herds and flocks. Only they remained stubbornly but lines
on skin and I could not see beyond them.

Garn invited no advice or comments from us. I had not
expected that he would. He had called us together only
that we might know his will and be prepared for the deci-
sion he was about to make if all went favorably for him at
the lot drawing.

That river he had indicated lay well to the north, be-
yond the bays which he had said would be the first
choices of the sea lords. I wondered how long a journey
northward it would be, also how many days of foot travel
it would take us. The time was spring, we should be get-
ting into the ground the precious bags of seeds which
weighed down half of our last wain -- if we expected any
sort of a crop at all this year.

There was no telling how chill the winter seasons might
be here, or how swiftly they would come, how short or
long the growing tune could last. Too lengthy a journey
might bring us under the dark shadow of winter want, a
specter to haunt any clan. Still, the choice was Garn's and
no lord ever led his people into outright disaster if he
could help it.

The night's council was held at the midsection of our
strung out line of march, near where Lord Farkon's long
parade of wains and folk wagons were in place. They had
ready a fire and around that the lords sat, their blood
kin behind them while Laudat and Ouse, both pulling
their gray cloaks close about them as if they felt the damp
chill even more than any others, and Wavent, Captain of