"Joel Rosenberg - 04 - The Heir Apparent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

getting close to husband-high, and there wasn't even anyone of the right species around.

Ahira chuckled to himself. I don't mind being a dwarf, but I wouldn't want any goddaughter to marry
one.


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"You worry too much," the big man repeated, whittling at a piece of green pine as they sat on their
benches at the entrance to the Endell warrens, waiting for the night to come on. "Particularly at
the end of the day. I thought you were a dwarf, not a human. You're supposed to enjoy dusk."

"There's some truth in that, at least." Ahira nodded. Evening was the best time of the day, as the
annoyances and labors of the day vanished into the oncoming night.

Or were supposed to, at any rate. That was the trouble with Slovotsky; while he tried to get along,
he didn't have a dwarf's feeling for timing.

Blood and bone are just clay; the world wears them down,

With a moan and a grind, a grunt and a groan,

A shudder, a quiver, a frown.

So let the world go away, at the end of the dayтАФ

тАФthe old evenchant began; a simple reminder that night was a time for rest and sleep, and that the
worries of tomorrow could well wait until tomorrow.

A simple idea, but dwarves were good at understanding simplicity. It came with the territory.

Timing was a part of that simplicity.

As the two friends sat chatting, the dwarves who lived in the so-called Old WarrensтАФalthough
they were not the oldest warrens in EndellтАФwere finishing their day, preparing to return to the
warmth and safety of the warrens for the night.

Some astride small ponies and others afoot, they all made their way home to this entrance to the
warrens, preparing for the onset of darkness. Some sweaty and dusty from the day's work in King
Maherrelen's fields, a rare few returning home with wagons laden with trade goods from the
southтАФall managed to make the final or only leg of their journey so that they arrived at the
entrance just before sunset, no later.

Dwarves had a talent, a gift, for timing, the way that humans excel at swimming. Dwarves didn't
swim, of course. Dwarves couldn't even float.

Humans, after all, were only barely less dense than water, and barely able to float; dwarves'
greater density of muscle and bone would make a dwarf sink like a stone.