"Seventh Sword 02 - The Coming of Wisdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

That was wrong. That was all wrong. Quili knew little about swordsmen, but she knew more about them than Sal'o did. Hiding the women would be the absolute worst thing to do.

"You mustn't! It'll be an insult! They'll be furious!"

"But, priestess..."

She was not a priestess. She was only a Second, an apprentice. The tenants called her priestess as a courtesy because she was all they had, but she was only seventeen and Sal'o was a farmer of the Third and a grandfather and Motipodi's deputy, so she could not possibly give him orders, but she was also the local expert on swordsmen, and she knew that hiding the women would be a terrible provocation... She needed time to think.

"Wait outside! Don't let the women leave. I'll be right there."

"Yes, Quili," Sal'o said, and the room was dark. Plumes of phantom light still floated on blackness in her eyes. The outer door banged, and she heard him shouting.

DAVE DUNCAN 3

Quili threw off the blanket and shivered herself a coating of goose bumps. The flags were icy and uneven as she padded across to the window and threw open the shutter. A faint glow entered, accompanied by a hiss of rain and dripping sounds from the roof.

One of her two gowns was muddy, for yesterday she had been thinning the carrots. Her other was almost as shabby, yet somewhere she still had an old one she had brought from the temple. It had been her second best then and was better than her other two now—gardening ruined clothes much faster than being an acolyte did. She found it in the chest, yanked it out, and pulled it over her head in one long, shivery movement. It was surprisingly tight. She must have filled out more than she had thought. What would swordsmen think of a priestess who wore a tight-fitting gown like this? She fumbled for her shoes and a comb at the same time.

Her wooden soles clacked on the paving. She opened the squeaky outer door even as she reached for her cloak, hanging on a peg beside it. The bottom edge of the sky was brightening below a carpet of black cloud. More roosters screamed welcome to the dawn. She was still dragging the comb through her long tangles; her eyes felt puffy and her mouth dry.

On the far side of the pond, four or five of the smoky rush lights hissed amid a crowd of a dozen adults and some frightened children. Two or three more people were heading toward mem. Light reflected fuzzily in the rain-pebbled water; other lights danced in a couple of windows. There was no wind, only steady, relentless drizzle; summer rain, not even very cold.

She splashed along the trail, around the pond to the group. Rain soaked her hair and dribbled into her collar. Silence fell at her approach. She was the local expert on swordsmen.

Why would swordsmen be coming here?

Several voices started to speak, but Salimono's drowned them out. "Is it safe, priestess?"

"It isn't safe to hide the women!" Quili said firmly. Kandoru had told stories about deserted villages being burned. "You'd provoke them. No, it's the men!"

"But they didn't do it!" a woman wailed.

"It wasn't us!" said others. "You know that!"

4 THE COMING OF WISDOM

"Hush!" she said, and they hushed. They were all older than she, even Nia, and yet they hushed. They were alt bigger than she—husky, raw peasant folk, gentle and bewildered and indistinct in the gloom. "SaTo, did you send a message to her ladyship'1"

"PiPowent."

"I think maybe all the men should go..."

There was another terrified chorus of "We didn't do it!"

"Quiet! I know that. I'll testify to that. But I don't think it was reported."

There was a silence. Then Myi's voice growled, "How could it be reported?"

There had been no swordsmen left to report it to.