"Roberts, John Maddox - Stormlands 03 - The Poisoned Lands UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts John Maddox)

THE POISONED LANDS
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They had been riding in a roughly northerly direction along the river and had come to a narrow strip of floodplain with the river on one side and on the other a cliff of red sandstone that bellied out dramatically far above their heads. He pointed at a deep indentation in die cliff where irregular mud structures clustered like the nests of giant, cliff-dwelling birds.
"That is the village of Redstone."
"Village! You mean people live in such a place?" But now he could see them, ghostly forms in reddish robes moving among the bizarre houses, some of them tending little herds of small beasts. At the foot of the cliff were some pens for livestock and an apparatus for dipping water from a stone-lined pool. The pool was connected to the river by a channel, also lined with cut stone.
Smoke drifted up from stubby chimneys and the smell was clean in the still air. His stomach rumbled and he remembered that he had not eaten since that morning, when they had breakfasted on trail rations.
The quiet of the place was strange. From somewhere out of sight came the honking bellows of ill-tempered humpers, but that was all. Ansa had always thought of villages as noisy places. They certainly were when he and his friends rode into them. He had spent months amid the clamor of the steel pit and was unused to so many people making so little noise. As they drew nearer the village, he saw that even the children played quietly.
"How should I behave?" Ansa asked as they reached the outskirts of the village.
"As a plainsman," she said, "I suppose there is little you can do to temper your arrogance. Just carry yourself as you did in my village and you will probably cause little offense."
Ansa had always thought his manners to be excellent, and it nettled him to hear that she thought him overbearing. Did she expect humility? He had borne himself as he thought a
plainsman should, when traveling among inferior people. What else would be more fitting?
A tall, stately form approached them as they reached the watering-pool. As Ansa had found disconcertingly common among these people, sex was not immediately apparent. The hood was raised with its veil drawn across the face against die omnipresent dust, revealing only a pair of amazing eyes, the exact color of new-minted gold coins. Ansa heard a sharp intake of breath and saw Fyana make an obeisance, the first such gesture he had seen from her, or from any Canyon dweller, for that matter.
"Lady Bel!" Fyana said, "I had not expected to find you here."
The woman responded to the obeisance by placing a long-fingered hand against Fyana's forehead.
"I came to meet you here. I was expecting you."
How could she be expecting us? Ansa wondered. Did they have the power to read the future? Did they have extraordinarily swift and clever spies? Or was this just more mummery to make him believe their sorcerous claims? He suspected the latter.
The woman turned her golden eyes upon him. "Welcome, Ansa, son of Hael. Welcome to Redstone." A small group of villagers had ranged themselves behind Lady Bel.
"I thank you, my lady. It seems that my attempts to conceal my paternity have little effect here."
He could see nothing of her save her eyes, but they smiled. ' 'You have no need to use subterfuge with us. Where are you going, though, it will be very necessary, indeed."
"How do you know where I am going?" Ansa asked. To cover his confusion, he led his cabo to the pool and let it drink.
"We needn't speak while standing out here," Lady Bel said. "It is inhospitable behavior at the very least." She toned to one of the villagers behind her. "Elder Yama, perhaps we could retire to the lodge with our guests."
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THE POISONED LANDS
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The man bowed. "Of a certainty." He turned to Ansa. "Allow me to extend the welcome of my village to our distinguished guest from the north."
The formality of these people began to infect him. "On behalf of my father and my people, I accept gladly."
Lady Bel introduced the others, all Elders or important personages of the village. It stil! seemed strange to him that mere villagers could have the style and bearing of nobles. That city-dwellers considered his own people to be nomadic savages was, to him, only proof of their ignorance.
Boys took charge of their animals and they retired to the lodge, which was a mud structure a good deal larger than the others, with a single, long room with conical fireplaces at each end. Ansa thought that mud was an ugly and impoverished building material, but he was forced to admit that the interiors of the mud houses were wonderfully cool and comfortable in the fierce desert country. The company ranged themselves down the length of the room in two facing lines and sat on the floor. At one end of the double file sat Lady Bel. At her gesture, Ansa and Fyana sat at her right and left hands, facing one another.
"First," said Lady Bel, "you two must eat and refresh yourselves. We shall talk later."
Ansa knew better than to protest that they had done no more than engage in a leisurely, sight-seeing ride for the last two days. Hospitality demanded that they be treated as if they had ridden hard for a year and arrived at the village as if at death's door. They sat making small talk while they were served with food and drink.
Lady Bel lowered her hood and veil, revealing a face Ansa could not quite define as elderly. Her facial skin was as smooth and unlined as Fyana's, but it lay thin against the fine, aristocratic bones, the veins showing as a darker blue tracery against the pale blue of her Canyon features. Her hands were likewise youthful-seeming, without the gnarling
and distended veins Ansa associated with great age. Nonetheless, he was certain that this was a very old woman.
When the demands of hospitality were satisfied, they were given cups of an herb infusion lightly mixed with a heavy wine. It was customary to breathe the steam for a few moments before ceremoniously sipping at the hot liquid.
"You have come at a crucial time," Lady Bel began. "For some time now, the focus of important events has been far from the Canyon, the desert and the plains. Your father has busied himself to the east, establishing trade and military relations with the peoples of those lands. Gasam had conquered and consolidated Chiwa and some nearby kingdoms and islands. This balance and relative quiet is changing now. Gasam is on the march again, this time to the southeast. He is crossing into Sono. He will not stop there. In time he will take Gran as well and after that he will move north.''
"Gasam!" This was news, indeed. He had been a boy when his father's lifelong enemy had last threatened the people of the plains. Chiwa was a remote kingdom, and Hael had hoped that Gasam would somehow die in his wars there. It now seemed that he had not.
Ansa felt a rush of excitement. Others might consider these developments to be alarming, but for a young warrior the only opportunity for honor and advancement lay in warfare.
"Do not be so eager," said Lady Bel, as if she could read his thoughts. "In the first place, it will be some time before that madman turns his armies northward. But, more importantly, it will be absolutely necessary that we have accurate information as to his doings and intentions."
"It seems to me," Ansa said, "that you already have such information."
"We have our agents in other lands, watching out for our interests. They have ways of contacting us with little delay.
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But this will grow more difficult now that Gasam is on the move. There will be great confusion for a while. Someone fully trusted by King Hael should be there to observe." She gazed at him steadily.
"You mean that I should go there, into the midst of Gas-am's invasion, alone?" He had been seeking adventure, but nothing quite this drastic.
"No," Lady Bel shook her head. "Not alone. With her." Now she nodded toward Fyana. "Someone we fully trust should go as well."
"What! To go alone would be suicidal. To go burdened with a woman would be"Чhe found that he had left himself short of dreadful prospectsЧ"well, worse than suicidal."
" 'Burdened,' " Fyana said. "We shall see who is to be the burden on this mission."
"Why do you both speak as if I have already agreed to this madness?"
"Lady Bel has said that I shall go," Fyana told him, "and so it shall be."
"And you will go," Lady Bel added, "because it will be a feat worthy of a great warrior. For the king's very son to go within the grasp of his hereditary enemy is a thing to be sung of. At last you shall have done something to match your father's warrior feats."