"Andre Norton - Witch World - Lore of the Witch World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

 Then she lifted her head a little, for she knew someone was now
standing at her side. There was the tang of sea-salted leather and other
odors. This was a stranger, one of the Sulcar men.

"You work that thread with skill, maid."

She recognized the captain's voice. "It is my skill, Lord Captain."

"They tell me that fate has served you harshly." He spoke bluntly then,
but she liked him the better for that bluntness.

"Not so, Lord Captain. These of Rannock have been ever kind. And I
was fosterling to their Wise Woman. Also, my hands serve well, if my eyes
are closed upon this world. Come, you, and see!" She spoke with pride as
she arose from her stool, thrusting her spindle into her girdle.

Thus Dairine brought him to her cottage, sweet within for all its scents
of herbs. She gestured to where stood the loom Herdrek had made her.

"As you see, Lord Captain, I am not idle, even though I may be blind."

She knew that there, in the half-done web, there was no mistake.

Ortis was silent for a moment. Then she heard the hiss of his breath
expelled in wonder.

"But this is weaving of the finest! There is no fault in color or patternтАж
How can this be done?"

"With one's two hands, Lord Captain!" She laughed. "Here, give me a
possession of yours that I may show you better how fingers can be eyes."

Within her there was a new excitement, for something told her that
this was a moment of importance in her life. She heard then a faint swish
as if some bit of woven stuff were being shaken free. A clinging length was
pressed into the hand she held out.

"Tell me," he commanded, "from whence came this, and how was it
wrought?"

Back and forth between her fingers the girl slipped the ribband of
silken stuff.
 WovenтАФyes. But her "seeing" hands built no mind picture of human
fingers at the business. No, strangely ill-formed were those members
engaged in the weaving. And so swift were they also that they seemed to
blur. No woman, as Dairine knew women, had fashioned this. But
femaleтАФstrongly, almost fiercely female.

"Spider silkтАФ" She was not aware that she had spoken aloud until she
heard the sound of her own words. "Yet not quite spider. A woman