"Tamora Pierce - Protector Of The Small 1 - First Test" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

get the Yamanis to respect them, they had all learned to hide their feelings. Home in Mindelan again, they
still acted as Yamanis, hiding uneasiness and even distress behind still faces.
Kel struggled to reread the letter, afraid to say a word. If she did, her shaking voice would give her
away. Instead she waited as she tried to control the anger and sense of betrayal that filled her.
"It is not the reply we expected," Baron Piers said at last. He was a short, stocky man. Keladry had
his build, delicate nose, and dreamy, long-lashed hazel eyes. Her brown hair was several shades lighter
than his. When Kel did not reply he continued, "His declaration of ten years ago was that girls could
become pages. Nothing was said of probation then."
"Keladry?" asked her mother. "You can say what you feel. We are no longer among the Yamanis."
She was a thin, elegant woman, taller than her husband by nearly a head, with hair that had gone white
very early in life and a deep, musical voice. All Keladry had from her was height. At the age often the girl
was already five feet tall and still growing.
It took Kel a moment to register what her mother had said. She tried a smile. "But, Mama, I don't
want to get into bad habits, in case I go back with you." She looked at Lord Wyldon's letter again. She
had expected to be a page when her parents returned to the Yamani Islands in eighteen months. From
the tone of this letter, perhaps she ought not to count on that.
"It isn't right," she said quietly, even fiercely. "No boys have probation. I'm supposed to be treated the
same."
"Don't give your answer yet," Baron Piers said quickly. "Take the letter with you. Think about what it
says. You're not hasty, Kel - this is a bad time to start."
"Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short," added her mother in Yamani. "Be as
stone."
Kel bowed Yamani-style, palms flat on her thighs. Then she went to find someplace quiet to think.
 First she went to her room beside the nursery. That wasn't a good choice. Two of her brothers' young
families lived at Mindelan. With the children and their nursemaids next door, there was enough noise to
drown out trumpets. No one had seen her creep into the room, but her oldest nephew saw her leaving it.
Nothing would do for him but that she give him a piggyback ride around the large room. After that, all of
the older children wanted rides of their own. Once that was done, the nursemaids helped Kel to escape.
She tried to hole up by the fountain in the castle garden, but her sisters-in-law were there, sewing and
gossiping with their maids. The kitchen garden was her next choice, but two servants were there
gathering vegetables. She stared longingly at her favorite childhood spot, the highest tower in the castle,
and felt a surge of anger. Before they had gone to the islands her brother Conal had teasingly held her
over the edge of the tower balcony. Until that time she had visited the top of that tower at least once a
day. Now the thought of it made her shudder.
There were hundreds of places she might use around the castle, but they were all indoors. She needed
to be outside. She was trying to think of a place when she remembered the broad, shallow Domin River,
which ran through the woods. No one would be there. She could sit by the water and think in peace.
"Miss?" called a voice as she strode through the inner gate in the castle wall. "Where might you be
going?"
Kel turned to face the man-at-arms who had called to her. "I don't know."
The man held out a small horn. "If you're not going to the village, you need one of these." He spoke
carefully. The baron and his family had been home only for three months, and the people were still not
sure what to make of these strange, Yamani-like nobles. "They told you the rule, surely. Any time you go
outside the castle or village, you take a horn. You never know when one of them monsters, centaurs or
giants or whatever, will show its face."
Kel frowned. The legendary creatures that had returned to their world five years before had an
unnerving way of showing up when they were least expected. For every one that was harmless or willing
to get on with humans, there were fistfuls that weren't. Bands of men-at-arms now roamed throughout the
fiefdom, searching for hostile visitors and listening for the horn call, which meant someone was in trouble.
I'm not going very far, she wanted to argue, but the Yamanis had taught her to obey a soldier's