"Kate Elliott - Jaran 4 - The Law of Becoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

He rose at once. "Cousin," he said, acknowledging her in the formal style.

She walked into the room, skirted the couch, and sat down on a pillow opposite him on the rug.
Her children trailed after her, the fair-haired, sullen, small boy and the gorgeous daughter who carried
the infant Anton in her arms.

"Mama," said Ilyana in an undertone, shifting her baby brother in her arms as he squirmed to get
free and down on the carpet, "we're supposed to be in school."

"Hush," said Karolla, slanting a quick glance at her daughter. The girl did not look like her mother
at all. Karolla was a pale, undistinguished, weary-looking woman, and Anatoly found it odd and rather
disturbing that she acted more like her husband's servant than his wife. "It's a khaja thing, this school.
There's no reason you need to go."

The girl set her lips tight, but to Anatoly's surprise, she did not protest. The boy flung himself down
on the carpet and stared at the flowered wall, or at nothing.

Anatoly got up and went over to Ilyana. "Here, I'll take the little one," he offered. Anton was a
robust boy, not quite walking yet; solemn, a little grumpy, but coaxable. Anatoly liked holding him. He
set the baby on his knee and turned back to Karolla, careful not to look at her directly. "Cousin, I
apologize for ... my impertinence, but as my wife says, the children must learn khaja ways as well as
jaran ways if they are to get along here." He pretended not to see the grateful glance Ilyana threw his
way. Valentin stared dreamy-eyed into the air and did not appear to hear him. Anton wiggled off his
lap and crawled over toward his mother, thought better of it, sat up, and began chewing on his fat fist.

Watching him, Anatoly conceived the first element of his campaign to win his wife back. They must
have a child, preferably three or four.

"Go on, then, if you want to," said Karolla suddenly into the silence.

Ilyana leapt to her feet, grabbed Valentin's wrist and yanked him up, and tugged him out of the
room before he seemed aware that his feet were moving. Anatoly heard their feet pound down the
stairs. At their defection, Anton broke into hiccuping little sobs, and at once Karolla pulled him to her
lap and let him nurse.

"We shouldn't be here," she said in a confiding voice. "The gods cannot approve."

Irritated, Anatoly nevertheless was far too well-bred to show it. The two situations were scarcely
comparable. He had, as was fitting, followed his wife to her people's tribe. That his wife was also a
Singer and thereby touched by the gods (although here on Earth they called her an actor) had made
his duty all the more clear, and indeed, while the pressure for him to stay with the jaran had become
intense, once decided he had not faltered from his choice to follow her.

"We are here," he said mildly, finally, "and surely that is the duty the gods have given us."

"To live exiled from our people?" asked Karolla bitterly. Then she answered herself. "But I have
always lived in exile from my tribe, since I chose to follow my father and my husband."

Unnatural acts both, thought Anatoly, but he did not voice the thought aloud, not wishing to hurt