"Nancy Springer - Isle 05 - The Golden Swan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

"And I did not understand or see what was happening to you. So there you were all alone when you
needed me most."

You came when I needed you most, I said. He did not reply, and I lay thinking.

The change, I addedтАФ7had to face it alone .

So here I was in human form. But I was not likely to make a very satisfactory human, I sensed. And my
bond brother, what of him? All of life seemed in confusion.

Ido not want to leave you again , I said to Trevyn. But we both knew I must.

Chapter Two

Being on two legs was a nuisance. It took me several days just to learn to stand and walk without help.
The height made me dizzy and made everything look strange. And there were matters of modesty to be
dealt with, where to relieve myself and clothing, which was a constant bother. I wore as little as possible.
And eating. Luckily I had been accustomed to cooked meats, so it was only the manner of eating that
was strange to me. I could no longer put my face down to a plate on the floor. I had to sit and use a cup
and convey the food to my mouth with my hands. No mention was made of knife and fork, for which I
was grateful. The hands were clumsy enough. So was the mouth.

"Move your lips," Trevyn would say to me gently from time to time. "They are. shaped like mine now.
Make speech."

"Awaaa," I would say, or perhaps "Rawawarrr." I could manage nothing more. Trevyn would repeat a
simple word to me, "meat" or "water," trying to help me. But I could not be helped. I had missed learning
something that human young learn while I was a wolf.

For that first week, while I was struggling with human form, the stranger I had found lay abed and did
not fully come to himself. He could be roused and given wine and bread and broth, so he grew no
weaker. He talked. But he talked only to himself, his dreams or shadows on the wall, and in a language
no one could understand. He did not know where he was, the doctors said.

As soon as I could walk the distance I went with Trevyn to see him.

He sat propped up on pillows, his hair bright and fine as feathers against the white linen, his crippled left
arm beside him and the other folded across his chest. A doctor and servants stood by his bedside
shaking their heads. The stranger youth was talking steadily to no one at all. His voice ran like a river
between walls, behind weirs, calm, forceful, controlled. He might have been addressing a council. Trevyn
sat beside him and listened, frowning.
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"I thought I knew every language of the overseas lands," he said, "but this one is new to me."

The youth talked through the afternoon and into the night. The doctor could neither soothe him into