"Nancy Varian - Berberick - Dalamar the Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varian Nancy)

himself. Let him know she was coming!

Chapter 2

On days of sun, Dalamar labored indoors in his lord's steamy kitchen, in the
musty wine cellars where he was set to catching rats, or in the attics under
the high eaves, where it was Eflid's pleasure to give him the task of sorting
through old clothing during the breathless hours of hot afternoons. On days of
rain, Eflid made certain that Dalamar worked outside, sometimes in the gardens
to brace slender plants against the downpours, sometimes after the rain,
slogging through mud to repair what damage had been done.
"It's not fair," murmured the young woman who served at the lord's breakfast
table. "He treats you worse than he treats any of us, Dalamar. How do you
stand it?"
"It's our way," Dalamar said. They stood in the doorway to the kitchen garden,
looking out into the day hung heavily with mist and leaden clouds. He plucked
a wisp of straw from the floor, a stray bit of packing from a crate of wine.
"An old pattern. Eflid wants something from me, and I want to be sure he's not
going to get it."
The young woman, Leida, the daughter of a mother who had served in Ralan's
hall all her life, child of a father who yet served there, looked at him with
luminous green eyes. She had once thought she was in love with a Wildrunner, a
young man she saw striding about the city, handsome in his leathers and green
shirt. No matter that their life-paths would never cross. No matter that a son
of House Protector would never have looked her way but to tell her to refill
his mug of ale. When war took the charming soldier north, Leida had wept for
as long as an hour, and then she turned her attention closer to home and the
dark-eyed mage who seemed suddenly more handsome than the Wildrunner for being
so much nearer.
"What, then?" she asked Dalamar. "What does Eflid want?"
Using only the agile fingers of his right hand, Dalamar tied a knot in the
straw. "A servant humble and biddable."
Leida laughed, her green eyes sparkling. "He'd spend all his days trying to
make you into that, and he'd die never seeing it done."
"They're his days to spend." Dalamar shrugged. "And that's how he wastes
them."
"And you? You don't mind it?"
He looked at her long, and when he answered, he spoke coolly. "I mind."
Leida shuddered, for she saw something in his eyes to make her think of a wolf
lurking beyond the light of a campfire.
That morning, rain had poured down in sheets. Now at noon, the sky was still.
Clouds hung leaden, threatening to burst, and the garden was filled with mist
and the fragrance of mint and thyme and sweet chamomile. Brown muddy water ran
like small rivers round the beds, carving new shapes. Leida's yellow hair
loved the mist, springing into little curls around her cheeks. She wore it
short, though elf women seldom did, because she liked the feeling of air
tickling her neck.
A pretty neck it was, Dalamar thought. A gloss of mist, perhaps of sweat, lent
a sheen to the skin of her slender neck. He lifted a finger and caught the
droplet. His eyes on hers, feeling her move toward him though she moved not at