"Jennifer Roberson - CotC 6 - Daughter of the Lion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

"If you were a motherтАФ"
I turned my hands palm-up. "But I am not. And,
given the choice, I never will be."
Aileen sat down again, hastily. "Why not?" she
asked in shock. "How can ye not want bairns?"
I peeled sticky hair away from my face and
smoothed it back, tucking it into my loosened
braid. Not wanting to offend her with my odorтАФ
and unable to sit dose while discussing something so
personal тАФI eased myself down on the stone floor
and leaned against the wall. The room was plain,
unadorned, nothing more than what it was
intended to be: a practice chamber for war.
"Babies require things," I said. "Things such as
constant responsibility . . . they steal time and free-
dom, robbing you of choice. They are parasites
of the soul."
 "Keely!"
I sighed, knowing how callous it sounded; know-
ing also I meant it. "All my life I have fought for my
freedom. I fight for it every day. And I will lose
what I have won the moment I conceive."
" TтАЩisn't true!" she cried. "Have I lost my freedom?"
"Have you?" I countered. "Before you left Erinn
and came here to HomanaтАФbefore you fell in love
with CorinтАФbefore you married Brennan . . . what
was your life like?"
Aileen said nothing at all, because to speak was to
lose the battle.
"On the day you lay down with Brennan, Aidan
was conceived," I said. "And from that day you be-
came more than a woman, more than you', you be-
came the vessel that housed Homana, because one
day that child would be Mujhar. Your value was
based solely on that, not on you, not on Aileen . . .
but on that childтАФthat bairn, as you would sayтАФ
because babies born into royal houses are more than
merely babies." I shrugged. "They are coin to barter
with, just as you and I were before we were even
born." I pulled my braid over one shoulder and
played absently with the ends below the thong. It
needed washing, like the rest of me. "I have no
affection for babies; I would sooner do without."
"You'll not be saying that once you're wed to Sean"
She sounded so certain. So certain, in fact, it fanned
unacknowledged resentment into too-hasty speech.
"And how does it feel, Aileen, to lie in one man's
bedтАФto bear that man his childrenтАФwhile loving yet
another?"
Aileen jumped to her feet. "Ye skilfin!" she cried.