"Michelle West - The Memory of Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

monument the Barons would have been proud to own.
When Sanfred and Jordan found him again, wandering naked, bleeding, skeletal, they
taken him in silence to the lower halls, and he had made good his escape.
But in escape, he carried knowledge: the Rod and the Sword would fail. The orb woul
shattered, and the runes on the blade would speak in the tongue of an accusation he unders
well: they were hollow vessels, their metal and their finery too superficial for the task at ha
 The line stretched on forever. Grandmother, mother, and daughter, they faced it li
family faces drought: grimly, silently. Ces-saly was uncomfortable in the present, and she
young, adept in ways that her elders, too slow and rigid, could no longer be. She sought
Found it.
Cessaly's father, his pride contained in the scarcity of his words, had taken some o
things she had made to market when the merchants began their spring passage through the
Towns on their way to the Western Kingdoms, those lands made distant and mythical bec
she would never set eyes upon them.
She had been younger, then; a good five years younger, and still prone to be mistaken
boy whenever she traveled in the company of her brothers. But she had gone with her da w
he took the wagons into the common, and she had stood by his side while he offered
merchantsтАФat some great costтАФthe fruits of her half-forbidden, half-encouraged labor.
She had made horses, that year. Horses fleet of foot and gleaming with sunlight, manes
flying, feet unfettered by the shod hooves that the merchants prized.
"You made these?" the merchant said, lifting the first of the horses.
Her father had shrugged.
"These are Southern horses. You've seen action, then?"
He said nothing. The Free Towners knew that her father had been born on the coast; k
that he had survived the border skirmishes that were so common between the North and
South. They also knew better than to ask about them.
"You've a good hand," the merchant continued, eyes narrowing slightly. "What do you
for them?"
Her father had named a price.
The merchant's brows rose in that mockery of shock that was familiar to any Towner
had cause to treat with him.
They had bickered, argued, insulted each other's birthplace, parents, heritage. And then
had parted with what they valued: her father with the small horses, the merchant with
money.
It might have ended that way, but Cessaly, impatient and bursting with pride and worry,
said, "What'll you do with 'em?"
The merchant raised a brow. "Sell them, of course."
"To who?"
"To a little girl's parents in the West. Or in the East. They are . . . very good. Perhaps if
had paint," he had added, speaking again to her father. "For a priceтАФa good priceтАФI migh
able to supply that."
"You wouldn't know a good price if it bit you," her father replied, mock angry.
"We want the paint," she'd answered.
And he turned to look at her, at her eager eyes, her serious face.
"What will you do with paint, child?"
She smiled. "I don't know."
And then he frowned. "Did you make these?"
"Yes."
"By yourself?"
 "Yes."