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

"If you're meant to have them, the coin will come," he remarked. "They have the power to pick out their true owners."
"Really, good sir?"
"Really." He leaned forward and ran a gnarled hand over the lid of the bronze-fitted box. "I've sold these sets for years, traveling round Orystinna, and I've come to know all about them. Now, the cheap things, they have no power whatsoever. A man I know up in Orysat brings them in from Bardektinna by the crateful. They're slave-made, I suppose. And those there in the cloth sacks, well, they're good enough, especially for a beginner. But every now and then a really fine set comes my way, like these. You can just feel, somehow, that they're different."
He picked out a tile and held it faceup in his palm. It was the prince of birds, exquisitely carved with a flare of wing and a long beak; into the graved lines the craftsman had rubbed some sort of blue and green dye, staining the bone beyond the power of fingers to rub it away. As she looked at it, Marka felt a peculiar sensation, that somehow she recognized that tile, that in fact she recognized the whole set and particularly its box.
"There's a wine stain on the bottom," she said, and then was horrified to realize she'd spoken aloud.
"Well, so there is." The vendor made the admission unwillingly. "But it's just a little one, and it's faded, too. It hasn't hurt the tiles any."
In the hot summer day Marka turned icy-cold. She managed to smile, then stood up. All she could think of was running away from the box of tiles. When someone touched her shoulder from behind, she screamed.
"Well, a thousand apologies!" It was Ebany, half laughing, half concerned. "I thought you'd seen me come up. Didn't mean to startle you."
"Oh, well, I was just, uh, well, talking with this man. He, uh, has these interesting things for sale."
Ebany glanced down and went as wide-eyed as a child. When he knelt down for a better look, she wanted to scream at him and beg him to come away. Yet, when he gestured at her to join him, she knelt beside him, as close as she dared. He picked the knave of flowers out of the box and held it up to let the golden blossoms catch the light. With an eye for Ebany's expensively embroidered shirt of the finest linen, the vendor leaned forward, all smiles.
"The young lady found those most interesting, sir."
"Oh, I'm sure she did." Ebany was smiling, but his gray eyes were oddly cold and distant, like a flash of steel. "Tell me, where did you buy these?"
"From a merchant up in Delinth, last year it was. He'd won them in a gambling game, he told me, over on Surtinna. He trades there regularly."
"You don't happen to remember what city he got them in, do you?" Ebany put back the knave and picked up a careless handful of other tiles. Seeing them lying in his long, pale fingers made Marka feel like fainting, but why, she couldn't say.
"Um, well." The vendor thought for a moment. "Wylinth, maybe, but I wouldn't swear to that. I've talked to a lot of people and heard a lot of tales since then."
"Of course. How much do you want for them?"
"Ten zotars."
"Huh, and the moon would cost me only twelve! Two zotars."
"What! The box alone is worth that."
"But it's got that wine stain on the bottom. Three zotars."
As they went on haggling, enjoying themselves thoroughly, Marka could barely listen. Ebany knew about the stain, too, just as she somehow knew, when neither of them had picked the box up and looked at the bottom. She was sorry she'd ever stopped to chat with the vendor, sorry she'd wanted the set of tiles, even sorrier he was buying them-and then it occurred to her that he was buying them just for her, just because he knew she wanted them. When he happened to glance her way and smile, she felt as if she would die from happiness. At last five zotars changed hands, and Ebany settled the lid on the box, picked it up, hefted it briefly, and gave it to her. Clutching it to her chest, she leaned over and on a sudden impulse kissed him on the cheek.
"Oh, thank you. They're so lovely."
He merely smiled, so warmly, so softly, that her heart started pounding. He rose, then helped her up, taking the box from her to carry it.
"Let's get back to the camp. Oh, and by the way. This isn't much of a place to ask, but will you marry me? I know that under your laws I should be asking your father, but going back to find that esteemed worthy would be a journey tedious beyond belief, and a reunion oppressive beyond sufferance."
"Marry you? Really actually marry you?"
"Just that."
When he laughed at her surprise, she realized just how ready she'd been to do anything that he might ask of her.
"Shall I take your silence as a yes or a no?"
"A yes, you idiot."
With one convulsive sob, hating herself for doing it, Marka began to cry, and she sniveled inelegantly all the way back to the caravanserai.

"You stupid blithering dolt!" Jill was yelling, but she did remember to use Deverrian. "I could strangle you!"
"Do calm down, will you now?" Salamander stepped back, honestly frightened. "I don't understand why your heart is so troubled, I truly don't."
Jill stopped, the anger ebbing, and considered the question as seriously as it did indeed deserve. She was worried about the girl, she supposed, who thought she was marrying a young traveling player much like herself while the truth was a fair bit stranger.
"Well, my apologies for getting so angry," she said at last. "I suppose it's because she's so young, and you're not, no matter how handsome your elven blood keeps you."
"But that's a reason in itself. Here, consider this. I'm well over a century old, my turtledove, old for a human being, young for a full-blooded man of the People, but I'm neither, am I?" His voice cracked with bitterness, quickly covered. "Who knows how long a half-breed lives? Marka's little more than a child, truly. I keep hoping that this time, we'll have the chance to grow old together. Before, even if she hadn't caught that fever, I would have lived long past her."
"Oh." Jill couldn't find it in her heart to reproach him. "Well. I mean, none of my affair, is it now? Whether the lass marries you or no."
"Mayhap I was a bit sudden about it. It was seeing her with those tiles. Ye gods, how many hours have I watched her, sitting there at that little table, poring over those tiles, and joking with me about what she was seeing, or-"
"Even if they should be incarnations of the same soul, Marka and Alaena are not the same person. No one is, truly, from life to life."
His eyes filled with tears, and he tossed his head, turning half away. Jill let out her breath in a long sigh. They were sitting in their tent, off at the edge of the campground. From outside Jill could hear Marka, babbling in a frenzy of joy, and Keeta's low voice, celebrating with her. It was certainly impossible to make Salamander go back on his offer.
"Well, that's torn it, then," she said. "I'll be going on to Anmurdio alone."
"What? I can't let you do that!"
"And I can't let you drag that child along with us, either."
"Why not? Is it any more dangerous than the life she's used to, wandering the roads and never knowing where her next copper's going to come from? We'll be safe enough. That's why I've been building up the troupe."
"Are you trying to tell me, you stupid chattering elf, that you want to take all these wretched acrobats all the way to Anmurdio with us?"
"Of course I do."
Jill could only stare at him. He smiled, all sunny charm.
"List but a moment, O Princess of Powers Perilous, and all will become as clear as a summer sky. Cast your mind backward to our youth, and our adventures in Slaith. Ah, glorious Slaith! Alas, thanks to my brother and his righteous wrath, no more do its beds of fish entrails scent the warm and tropic air, no more do pirates swagger down its rich and arrogant streets, no more do-"
"Are you going to hold your tongue or am I going to cut it out? Get to the point!"
"Well and good, then, but you do take the bloom off a man's rhetoric, I must say. The point, my turtledove, is this: Slaith was a foul and evil den of pirates, but even there, in that den of the accursed, my humble gerthddyn's calling made us both welcome and immune to infamy. Far more welcome, then, in isolate, nay, even desolate Anmurdio shall be an entire troupe of performers."