"Терри Гудкайн. Восьмое правило волшебника, или Обнаженная Империя(engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

He shrugged as he passed her his waterskin so that she wouldn't have to
dig hers out from beneath her desert garb. "Just a little extra precaution
in case anyone is close, and careless. Sometimes people don't expect the
simple things and that catches them up."
"But not you," Jennsen said, hooking the strap of her waterskin back
over her shoulder. "You think of even the simple things."
Richard chuckled softly. "If you think I don't make mistakes, Jennsen,
you're wrong. While it's dangerous to assume that those who wish you harm
are stupid, it can't hurt to spread out a little gravel just in case someone
thinks they can sneak across windswept rock in the dark without being
heard." .
Any trace of amusement faded as Richard stared off toward the western
horizon where stars had yet to appear. "But I fear that pebbles strewn along
the ground won't do any good for eyes watching from a dark sky." He turned
back to Jennsen, brightening, as if remembering he had been speaking to her.
"Still, everyone makes mistakes."
Cara wiped droplets of water from her sly smile as she handed Richard
back his waterskin. "Lord Rahl is always making mistakes, especially simple
ones. That's why he needs me around."
"Is that right, little miss perfect?" Richard chided as he snatched the
waterskin from her hand. "Maybe if you weren't 'helping' keep me out of
trouble, we wouldn't have black-tipped races shadowing us."
"What else could I do?" Cara blurted out. "I was trying to help--to
protect you both." Her smile had withered. "I'm sorry, Lord Rahl."
Richard sighed. "I know," he admitted as he reassuringly squeezed her
shoulder. "We'll figure it out."
Richard turned back to Jennsen. "Everyone makes mistakes. How a person
deals with their mistakes is a mark of their character."
Jennsen nodded as she thought it over. "My mother was always afraid of
making a mistake that would get us killed. She used to do
things like you did, in case my father's men were trying to sneak up on
us. We always lived in forests, though, so it was dry twigs, rather
than pebbles, that she often scattered around us."
Jennsen pulled on a ringlet of her hair as she stared off into dark
memories. "It was raining the night they came. If those men stepped on
twigs, she wouldn't have been able to hear it." She ran trembling fingers
over the silver hilt of the knife at her belt. "They were big, and they
surprised her, but still, she got one of them before they ..."
Darken Rahl had wanted Jennsen dead because she had been born ungifted.
Any ruler of that bloodline killed offspring such as she. Richard and Kahlan
believed that a person's life was their own to live, and that birth did not
qualify that right.
Jensen's haunted eyes turned up to Richard. "She got one of them before
they killed her."
With one arm, Richard pulled Jennsen into a tender embrace. They all
understood such terrible loss. The man who had lovingly raised
Richard had been killed by Darken Rahl himself. Darken Rahl had orderd
the murders of all of Kahlan's sister Confessors The men who killed
Jennsen's mother, though, were men from the Imperial Order sent to trick
her, to murder in order to make her believe it was Richard who was after