"Sorcerer's Son" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phyllis Eisenstein)

“Cray raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure it happened?”

“Well… no. But what reason would the blacksmith have to lie to me?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps he was merely passing on a diverting tale he’d heard from someone else. Do you always believe everything that people tell you, no matter how outlandish?”

“I don’t know what is outlandish, Master Cray. I’ve seen things on my journey with you that I would have thought outlandish before we met.”

Cray inclined his head. “True enough, Master Feldar. I should not belittle your gullibility. I’m sure I could show you more marvels yet. Though nothing as wonderful as making a whole village dance.” He rubbed at the side of his nose with an index finger.

“Perhaps… if there were vermin in their clothes, biting them constantly, they might appear to be dancing… or flying insects buzzing around them, stinging them… But if the old woman were truly one of the sorcerous breed, she would hardly need their hospitality, she would be quite capable of looking after her own requirements. I wonder what they really did to her.”

“You see,” said Sepwin, “you accept it as magic.”

“I accept it as a strange puzzle,” Cray replied, “that may or may not have some basis in fact.”

“Some basis, I think, or I wouldn’t know so many similar stories.”

“Of whole villages going mad?”

“Not quite that, no, but I know of crops that failed for no reason, wives and children who disappeared, homes that burned when there was no flame to touch them off—oh, we beggars pick up stories in our travels.”

“I look forward to hearing them all,” said Cray. “The road to the East March is a long one.”

“Did your mother never tell you such stories when you were a child? Mine did.”

“No, my mother’s stories dealt with the natural world, with animals and plants and rivers and mountains. They didn’t often include people or the things that concern people.”

“Then you will have a few tales to tell me on our journey, too,” said Sepwin. “Though I suspect we will run out of stories before we reach our destination.”

“I am grateful for your companionship, Master Feldar.”

Sepwin shrugged. “Falconhill or East March—it makes no difference to me where I go.

But… do you think the second knight could have been from the East March?”

“What? And followed my father all that way? I doubt it greatly. If it were true, he would have been waiting outside Spinweb, surely, when my father left; he was inside quite long enough for anyone to catch up with him.”

“Not if the pursuer left the East March much, much later than he.”

“Are you seeking some danger at the East March, Master Feldar?”

“I am only being cautious.”

“Well, I respect your caution,” Cray said, “but I think it is misplaced in this instance. My own feeling is that my father and this other knight had some quarrel earlier upon the road. Perhaps they even clashed then, and the fight was indecisive. Perhaps the other knight was dazed, or perhaps he pretended to give over the fight and go another way and then, when my father arrived at the old man’s hut, his enemy rushed after him, to surprise him.”

“You spin a fine tale, Master Cray.”

“Do I?” Cray sighed. “Well, I confess, it is only a tale, I won’t try to make myself think otherwise. But it makes neither more nor less sense than an old enemy come from the East March to settle an old quarrel. Why journey so far from home to kill a man? And if the East March were not the other knight’s home… then, Master Feldar, we have