"Sheri S. Tepper - Awakeners 2 - Southshore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

wide, low room that curved away just inside the outer wall. A refectory. Pamra
shivered. It was not unlike the refectory at the Tower of Baris. The smells were
not unlike those smells. Cereals and soap, steam and grease, cleanliness at war
with succulence. Trale beckoned to them from an angled corner, a smaller room
opening off the large one, where a fire blazed brightly upon the hearth.
"I'll return in a moment," he murmured, leaving them there.
Those who had drawn the cart stood back, waiting for Pamra to approach the fire.
She gestured them forward. The room was warm enough without baking herself.
She took off her outer clothing and spread it on a table. Her knee-length
undertunic was only damp, clinging to her body like a second skin. The men

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turned their eyes away under Peasimy's peremptory gaze, one of them flushing.
Trale was back in a moment with towels and a pile of loosely woven robes over
one arm. He did not seem to notice Pamra's body under the clinging fabric but
merely handed her one of the robes, as impersonally as a servant. Behind him
came a man and a woman, one bearing a tea service, the other a covered platter at
which Peasimy looked with suspicion. "Jarb," said Trale. "It is our custom."
"We won'tтАФ" Pamra began.
"No. It is our custom. With any visitor. Call itтАФoh, a method of diagnosis."
"We are not ill."
"The diagnosis is not always of illness. Do take tea. This is a very comforting brew. It has no
medicinal qualities aside from that."
They sat steaming before the fire, moisture rising from them and from their
discarded clothing in clouds. Rain fell down the chimney, making small spitting
noises in the fire. The wall at their side reverberated to the thunder outside,
hummed to the bow-stroke of the wind. In the great hall the voice murmur went
on and on. Beside the fire Trale knelt to scrape coals into a tiny brazier. Beside
the brazier lay three oval roots, warty and blue, each the size of a fist. Jarb roots,
Pamra thought. Trale peeled the roots carefully, dropping the peels into a shallow
pan. When all three were peeled, he laid the roots into the ashes and began to dry
the peels over the brazier, stirring them with a slender metal spoon. The woman
who had brought in the tea buried the peeled roots in the ashes and turned to smile
at Pamra.
"It is only the peel which has the power of visions. Jarb root itself is delicious.
The Noor eat it all the time. Have you ever tasted it?"
Pamra shook her head, oppressed once more by the sense of something missing.
"No." She ate less and less as the crusade wore on. Hunger seemed scarcely to
touch her. Now, for some reason, however, she felt ravenous. Perhaps it was the
smoke. Perhaps the smell of food. "I am hungry, though."
"They only take a few moments to steam. Some scrape the ashes off, but I like the
taste." She drew a pipe from her pocket and handed it to Trale, who filled it with
the powdery scraps from the pan. All three had pipes, and in a moment all three
were alight, seated before the fire, the smoke from the pipes floating out into the

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