"Jennifer Roberson - Sword Dancer 5 - Sword Born" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

"What--Skandi? Of course it's a real place. Or they wouldn't have taken us on as
passengers."

I slanted her a glance. Del couldn't possibly be any part of serious. "Are you any
part of serious?"

"I didn't ask about Skandi in particular." She dismissed without rancor my
unspoken suggestion that someone, somewhere, had done the impossible and
taken advantage of Delilah. "I asked where the ships were going. Nothing more.
So no, I did not play us into someone's greedy hands by planting the idea we'd
go anywhere so long as we thought it was Skandi. They told me this one was
going there, without prompting."

I vividly recalled the day she'd have scoured and scaled me with tongue and
temper for even hinting someone had gotten the best of her. But the bascha had
settled somewhat in the past three years, thanks to my benign influence. Now
she explained.

Grinning, I settled once again against the rail. It creaked and gave. I moved off
it again, promptly, scowling at damp, stained, salt-crusted wood. The ocean
troughs were deepening, smacking unruly waves against the prow. So much
water out there... and so little of anything else. Like--land. "You know, I just
can't see how a pregnant woman would sail all the way to the South from a
place so far away just to have a baby."

"Maybe she didn't."

"Didn't?"

"Well, maybe she didn't leave Skandi to have her baby in the South. Maybe she
got pregnant on the voyage. Or maybe she got pregnant after she reached the
South." Del eyed me assessively. "After all, half of you could be Southron. You
look like a Borderer."

I'd heard that before, from others. I wasn't right for pure Southron blood,
because the desert men were small, neat, and trim, dark-eyed, and swarthier
than I. By the same token, I was too dark for a Northerner, who were routinely
much fairer of hair than my bronze-brown. I was somewhere in the middle: tall
and big-boned as Del's people, but much darker in skin and hair; too big, but not
dark enough for a Southroner, and green-eyed to boot. Borderers, however,
were halfbreeds, born primarily to folk who lived either side of the border
between the North and the South. It made perfect sense that I was a Borderer.
Which meant I wasn't Skandic at all, and this entire voyage of discovery was
sheer folly.

But a man in Julah, where Del and I had stopped before going over-mountain to
Haziz-by-the-ocean-sea, had thought I was of his people. Had spoken to me in
his tongue. And he was Skandic. Or so he seemed, and so Del believed; she'd
sworn he looked enough like me to be my brother. Which was possible--if I was
Skandic, and he was--if not probable when considering the odds. Still, it was