"Kerr, Katharine - Westlands 02 - A Time Of Omens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

"How old is this lass, anyway?"
"Uh, well, sixteen or so."
"That's not much time as the Lords of Wyrd reckon time. It's possible, of course-just not likely."
"I know, I know, but I keep thinking, ye gods, our marriage lasted but such a little while! She would have wanted to come back as soon as she could."
"For your sake I suppose?"
He winced.
"Not for me," he said at last. "But because she loved life so much."
Jill wondered if she could ever be objective in this situation. Since she herself seemed to be destined to lose every man that she allowed herself to love, she refused to let her own bitterness spoil his chance to be happy. He sat frowning into his goblet until the, for him, bizarre silence got on her nerves.
"Does her family live here in town?"
"Um?" He looked up, startled. "My apologies. What did you say?"
"Your heart is really troubled, isn't it?"
"I'll admit to that. I was just remembering when Alaena died."
He got up and paced over to the one small window, leaned against the sill, and stared fixedly out at the courtyard below. Old grief turned his unnaturally handsome face slack. Jill waited for the tale and his usual flood of words. It never came.
"Does her family live here in town?" she repeated.
"It doesn't. I did a bit of asking round in the market before I came back here. She is-of all things-an acrobat. One of a troupe of acrobats just come from Main Island." As he turned back a glossy smile smoothed and masked his face. "Fancy that! I've heard of strange and solemn twists and turns of wild and wandering Wyrd before, but this-"
"Hold your tongue, will you? I suppose there's no harm in getting to know her a bit. But for the sake of all the gods, will you try to remember this? That even if by some bizarre chance this is the soul you knew as Alaena, she isn't the same person anymore. You have no idea what this child is like. None."
"True enough, much as it aches my eager heart."
There were times when Salamander could irritate Jill beyond belief, and this was one of them. For all that his half-elven blood kept him looking young, he was fifty-some years older than she, but although he'd started studying their mutual craft of the dweomer long before she'd been born, she'd so far overtaken him that she was, in a very real though unspoken way, the master now to his journeyman. Though he acknowledged her authority, which came ultimately from Nevyn himself, it didn't take dweomer to see that he resented it as well.
"You're truly angry with me, aren't you?" Salamander wiped his smile away.
"Ye gods! You promised me you were going to devote yourself to your studies, but you've kept finding one cursed distraction after another. Now this! And there's the lass to consider, too, you know. She's but a chid."
"Old enough to have been married for years in Deverry."
"This isn't Deverry."
"I was afraid you were going to say that. Jill, is it me you're angry with, or is it everything? The delay, I mean. We've been wandering round Bardek for months and months, finding but a trace here and there of the things you want to know."
Jill took a deep breath and considered.
"There's that, indeed. Patience has never been my right-hand weapon, has it?"
"And now glorious Luvilae has been but another dead trail, a road with no ending, a house with no doors, a-"
"One wretched image is enough, please. But there's still that bookseller in Ihderat Noa. I have hopes of him."
"I suppose you'll want to head back there straightaway."
"I was thinking of it, truly. Why not? Oh, of course. The lass. I suppose you want to spend a few days sniffing round her."
"How crudely you put things!" He grinned, tucking, his thumbs into his belt and leaning back against the wall. "But I did think I might take a stroll in the marketplace tonight. No doubt her troupe performs in the evening, when it's cooler."

When it came time for the show, it seemed at first that the gods were going to grant them a decent take. In the cool of the evening a big crowd gathered in front of their improvised stage, set up between two trees to support the slack wire. As the men raised the huge standing torches and Marka ran round lighting them, she noticed a number of fairly well-dressed people in the crowd, the kind who looked like they weren't above throwing some small change to a street performer. Best of all, her father was wide-awake and alert, laughing and joking with the troupe as they gathered backstage. The first turns went well, too, her own juggling, the apprentice tumblers, and Keeta's routine with the flaming torches. When the troupe broke to sling the slack wire, coins came in a copper shower, but here and there Marka plucked a silver one.
With great ceremony the flute boy and the drummer sat down cross-legged at the edge of the stage, paused a moment, then began the music for the centerpiece of the show, the slack rope routine. Wiping her face on a scarf, Marka stood off to one side and watched the crowd more than the show. Until Orima came along, the slack rope had been her own turn, one she'd learned as a small child from her mother and at which she was particularly skilled. A cow prancing on a string-that's our Rimi, she thought to herself. Then she saw, standing off toward the back, the barbarian juggler. Her heart thudded, her fingers tightened on the scarf, and she couldn't understand why in the least, except, perhaps, that he was so handsome. All at once he noticed her watching and smiled right at her. Blushing furiously, hating herself for it, she turned away.
Dressed in a brief but flowing silk tunic over a loincloth, Orima was just approaching the wire-wound rope, which hung between the twin wooden towers of the mounting platforms, a good six feet above the stage itself. With a big smile for crowd she climbed up and did a back flip on the platform. She bowed-several times too many in Marka's estimation-then took the balance pole and leapt to the rope for a graceful half run across, balancing in the middle. When the crowd cheered and clapped, she executed a good turn, and ran back to the platform so lightly and easily that the crowd yelled in delight. Marka could practically taste her own anger, a black bile in her mouth. As Orima mounted the rope again, she hesitated for the barest second, just the split of a moment too long. The rope swung, then snapped back; her lead foot groped and grabbed-too late. With a shriek she fell, landing spraddled on all fours, unhurt but furious as the crowd burst out laughing. Swearing under his breath Hamil rushed to help her up while the tumblers ran back on stage and hurled themselves into an improvised routine. It was no good. Laughing and chuckling, calling out a few insults, the crowd broke up and drifted away, and they didn't bother to throw a single coin behind them, not even for good luck.
In a sullen silence, barely able to look at each other, the troupe doused the torches, stripped the stage, and loaded everything into the wagons while Orima cowered under a nearby palm. Marka was frankly terrified, blaming her ill will for the fall even as she told herself, over and over, that such things were impossible. Much to her relief, no one mentioned the fall until they got back to the campground, where Delya and young Rosso were keeping an eye on the tents. While the men tended the horses and wagons, Hamil and the women drifted miserably over to the fire. Delya took one good look at their faces and said nothing. The silence grew until Orima screwed her face in a pout and pointed one painted fingernail at Marka.
"She hexed me!" Orima screeched. "Your precious little daughter hexed me! She's got the evil eye."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" Hamil snapped. "We all fall now and then."
"She's got the evil eye!" Orima stamped one slender foot.
"Will you shut up? If your head wasn't so empty you might have better balance on the rope."
"You pig! You filthy rooting hog!"
Orima and Hamil began sneering and screeching in turns. The rest of the troupe rolled eyes heavenward and trotted off, bursting into chatter as soon as they were well away from the slanging match by the fire. Marka raced off after Keeta. She knew how the fight would end; they would suddenly be all kisses and hugs and creep into their tent . . . she didn't want to think about it. In the moonlight the two women walked along the edge of the cliff and watched the waves foaming below.
"Keeta?" Marka said at last. "You don't think wishing someone ill can work them ill, do you?"
Keeta laughed, her dark rumble of a bellow as reassuring as a motherly hug.
"No, I most certainly don't. Why? Feeling a bite of guilt, hum?"
"Well, it sounds silly now."
"Understandable enough, little one. But don't vex your soul over it. She fell because she hurried her step, that's all." Keeta sighed profoundly. "At least we earned enough to eat for a while."
"But how are we going to get home? This is the only stinking town on this rotten little island, and they aren't going to want to watch the cow capering again."
"Oooh! Nasty little tongue!"
"But I'm right."
Keeta made a sort of grunt.