"Sheri S. Tepper - The True Game 2 - Necromancer Nine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

say she was the first female person I had seen so unclothed. Silkhands the Healer, even when she
traveled across the country with us, had never been so unclad. Now that she was bare, Sylbie seemed
not to know what to do next. I offered her wine, and we gulped at it together, each as uncomfortable as
the other.
"Have you had lots of women?" she whispered in a voice which seemed hopeful of an affirmative
answer.
Imanaged to say, "Ummm," in a vaguely encouraging tone.
"I didn't want to be fumbled at," she said through tears.
"Urnmm," sympathetically.
"I think it might help if I knew your name.
"P-Peter."
"Well, Peter, it's a comfort that you know about ... everything. My mother says that will make it
much easier," she said, then she threw herself sobbing onto the pillows.
I--was--am a fearfully stupid person. Until that instant I had not considered the Gamesmen of
Barish which were in the pouch at my belt. Among them was the eidolon of Trandilar, great Queen,
Goddess of beguilement and passion. I had taken that eidolon once before, outside the shattered walls of
Bannerwell. I had not thought of it since, had rejected use of it, had tried to pretend it had never
happened. Now, faced with the sodden misery before me, I could not in conscience ignore Trandilar
longer. Peter, rude boy would indeed "fumble at her." Only Trandilar offered any hope for something less
than agony for us both. My hand found the Gamespiece without trying, as though it rushed into my hand.
I knew then what to do and how to do it as the lizard knows the sun.
"Come," I said to the girl, laughing. "Let us have some of this good supper the matron has left us.
Tell me about your family. Eyes like yours are too lovely to spoil with tears." (Was this Peter speaking?
Surely. If not Peter, then who? Nobody?)
Tears were wiped away. Wine was drunk and food eaten; fire allowed to warm skin to a roseate
gleaming. Bodies allowed to huddle together for comfort when the howling came, to seek the softness of
the mattresses and quilts, to burrow, explore, touch, wonder at, murmur at. Alone, I would have made all
stiff, complex, and hateful, but with Trandilar all merely occurred. I seem to recall some howls from
within the room, but I cannot be sure. It was of no matter.
When I awoke, I found her staring at me, the tears running down her cheeks once again.
"Why are you crying? What's the matter?"
"They will arrange a marriage for me," she sobbed, "with someone awful, and it will never be like
this again."
Oh, Trandilar. Is nothing ever as it should be?
Later that morning the Midwife came to the door of our room, as the matron had said she would.
The dress of a midwife is red, with a white cowl and owl's feathers in a crest. She stared at me. then laid
hands upon Sylbie with an expression of fierce concentration before shaking her head and turning away
without a word. At which Sylbie turned unwontedly cheerful, as suddenly as she had become teary
before.
"You must stay another night," she crowed. "Nothing happened."
I replied, somewhat stiffly, that I felt a good deal had happened, at which she was properly giggly. I
had not known before that girls were giggly. Boys are, young boys, that is, in the dormitories of the
schools. Perhaps girls are allowed to retain some childhood habits and joys which boys are not. Or
perhaps it is only that male Gamesmen are so driven by Talent-but no. The whole matter was too
complex to think out. At any rate, the matron came again to give us leave toga into the market while she
arranged for the room to be cleaned and food brought in. So the day went by and another night during
which I had no real need of Trandilar, and another morning with Sylbie weeping, for this time the Midwife
nodded, the owl feathers bobbing upon her head. A child would be forthcoming, it seemed, and the
purpose of my being a nobody had been fulfilled. We sat in the window above the Street as she shed
tears all down the front of my tunic.