"David Eddings. Pawn of prophecy queen of sorcery magician's gambit (The Belgariad, Part one)" - читать интересную книгу автора

quick, crisp rocking movements of long, curved knives. When Garion was
very small, he played under those tables and soon learned to keep his
fingers and toes out from under the feet of the kitchen helpers who worked
around them. And sometimes in the late afternoon when he grew tired, he
would lie in a corner and stare into one of the flickering fires that
gleamed and reflected back from the hundred polished pots and knives and
long-handled spoons that hung from pegs along the whitewashed walls and,
all bemused, he would drift off into sleep in perfect peace and harmony
with all the world around him.
The center of the kitchen and everything that happened there was Aunt
Pol. She seemed somehow to be able to be everywhere at once. The finishing
touch that plumped a goose in its roasting pan or deftly shaped a rising
loaf or garnished a smoking ham fresh from the oven was always hers.
Though there were several others who worked in the kitchen, no loaf, stew,
soup, roast, or vegetable ever went out of it that had not been touched at
least once by Aunt Pol. She knew by smell, taste, or some higher instinct
what each dish required, and she seasoned them all by pinch or trace or a
negligent-seeming shake from earthenware spice pots. It was as if there
was a kind of magic about her, a knowledge and power beyond that of
ordinary people. And yet, even at her busiest, she always knew precisely
where Garion was. In the very midst of crimping a pie crust or decorating
a special cake or stitching up a freshly stuffed chicken she could,
without looking, reach out a leg and hook him back out from under the feet
of others with heel or ankle.
As he grew a bit older, it even became a game. Garion would watch until
she seemed far too busy to notice him, and then, laughing, he would run on
his sturdy little legs toward a door. But she would always catch him. And
he would laugh and throw his arms around her neck and kiss her and then go
back to watching for his next chance to run away again.
He was quite convinced in those early years that his Aunt Pol was quite
the most important and beautiful woman in the world. For one thing, she
was taller than the other women on Faldor's farm-very nearly as tall as a
man-and her face was always serious-even sternexcept with him, of course.
Her hair was long and very darkalmost black-all but one lock just above
her left brow which was white as new snow. At night when she tucked him
into the little bed close beside her own in their private room above the
kitchen, he would reach out and touch that white lock; she would smile at
him and touch his face with a soft hand. Then he would sleep, content in
the knowledge that she was there, watching over him.
Faldor's farm lay very nearly in the center of Sendaria, a misty
kingdom bordered on the west by the Sea of the Winds and on the east by
the Gulf of Cherek. Like all farmhouses in that particular time and place,
Faldor's farmstead was not one building or two, but rather was a solidly
constructed complex of sheds and barns and hen roosts and dovecotes all
facing inward upon a central yard with a stout gate at the front. Along
the second story gallery were the rooms, some spacious, some quite tiny,
in which lived the farmhands who tilled and planted and weeded the
extensive fields beyond the walls. Faldor himself lived in quarters in the
square tower above the central dining hall where his workers assembled
three times a day-sometimes four during harvest time-to feast on the