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

 "So be it," she returned, with an outward calm it was hard for her to
assume. "Have you the bit of silk? Let me learn from it what I can."

She heard him move away the grate of whatever door kept snug her
prison. As that sound ceased she put out her hands to explore. The cubby
was small; there was a shelflike bunk against the wall, a stool which
seemed bolted to the deck, nought else. Did they have Captain Ortis pent
in such a hole also? And how had this Vidruth managed so well the
takeover of the Captain's command? What she had read of Sib-bald Ortis
during their brief meeting did not lead her to think he was one easily
overcome by an enemy.

But she was sitting quietly on the stool when Vidruth returned to drop
the length of ribband across her quiet hands.

"Learn all you can," he urged her. "We have two days of sail if this wind
continues to favor us, then we shall raise Usturt. Food, water, what you
wish, shall be brought to you, and there is a guard without so that you
need not be troubled."

With the silk between her hands, Dairine concentrated upon what it
could tell her. She had no illusions concerning Vidruth. To him and the
others she was only a tool in their hands. Because she was sightless, he
might undervalue her, for all his talk of Talent and Power. She had
discovered many times in the past that such was so.

Deliberately, Dairine closed out the world about her, shut her ears to
creak of timber, wash of wave, her nose to the many smells which offended
it. Once more her "sight" turned inward. She could "see" the blue of those
hands (which were not quite hands) engaged in weaving. Colors she had
no words to describe were clear and bright. For the material she saw so
was not one straight length of color, but shimmered from one shade to
another.

Dairine tried now to probe beyond that shift of color to the loom from
which it had come. She had an impression of tall, dark shafts. Those were
not of well-planed and smooth wood; no, they had the crooked surface
ofтАФtreesтАФstanding trees!

The handsтАФconcentrate now upon the moving hands of the weaver.

But the girl had only reached that point of recognition when there was
a knock to distract her concentration. Exasperated, she turned her head to
the door of the cubby.

"Come!"

Again the squeak of hinge, the sound of boots, the smell of sea-wet
leather and man-skin. The newcomer cleared his throat as if ill at ease.