"David Farland - Runelords 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farland David)

"It was fun to watch. She just stood back, eyeing you like a cutlet on the butcher's block. She waited for five minutes"--
Borenson held up his hand, fingers splayed--"waiting for you to notice her! But you--you day-blind ferrin! You were too busy
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adoring some vendor's handsome chamber pots! How could you not see her? How could you ignore her? Ah!" Borenson
shrugged in exaggeration.
"I meant no offense," Gaborn said, looking up into Borenson's face. Though Borenson was his bodyguard and should thus
always be on the watch for assassins, the truth was that the big fellow was a lusty man. He could not walk through a street
without making little crooning noises at every shapely woman he passed. And if he didn't go wenching at least once a week,
he'd croon even at the woman who had no more shape than a bag of parsnips. His fellow guards sometimes joked that no
assassin hiding in between a woman's cleavage would ever escape his notice.
"Oh, I'm not offended," Borenson said. "Mystified, maybe. Perplexed. How could you not see her? You must have at least
smelled her?"
"Yes, she smells very nice. She keeps her gown in a drawer layered in rose petals."
Borenson rolled his eyes back dramatically and groaned. His face was flushed, and there was a peculiar excitement, an
intensity in his eyes. Though he pretended to be jesting, Gaborn could see that Borenson had indeed been smitten by this
northern beauty more than he cared to admit. If Borenson could have had his way, he'd have been off chasing the girl. "At least
you could have let her cure you of that vexing case of virginity you suffer from, milord!"
"It is a common enough malady for young men," Gaborn said, feeling offended. Borenson sometimes spoke to Gaborn as if
he were a drinking partner.
Borenson reddened even more. "As well it should be, milord!"
"Besides," Gaborn said, considering the toll a bastard child sometimes took on a kingdom, "the cure is often more costly
than the malady."
"I suspect that that cure is worth any price," Borenson said longingly, with a nod in the direction Myrrima had gone.
Suddenly, a plan blossomed in Gaborn's mind. A great geometer had once told him that when he discovered the answer to a
difficult calculation, he knew that his answer was right because he felt it all the way down to his toes. At this moment, as
Gaborn considered taking this young woman home to Mystarria, that same feeling of rightness struck him. Indeed, he felt that
same burning compulsion that had drawn him to this land in the first place. He yearned once again to take Myrrima back to
Mystarria, and suddenly saw the way.
He glanced at Borenson, to verify his hunch. The guardsman stood at his side, more than a head taller than Gaborn, and his
cheeks were red, as if his own thoughts embarrassed him. The soldier's laughing blue eyes seemed to shine with their own
light. His legs shook, though Gaborn had never seen him tremble in battle.
Down the lane, Myrrima turned a corner on a narrow market street, breaking into a run. Borenson shook his head ruefully, as
if to ask, How could you let her go?
"Borenson," Gaborn whispered, "hurry after her. Introduce yourself graciously, then bring her back to me, but take a few
minutes to talk as you walk. Stroll back. Do not hurry. Tell her I request an audience for only a moment."
"As you wish, milord," Borenson said. He began running in the swift way that only those who had taken an endowment of
metabolism could; many in the crowd parted before the big warrior, who wound his way gracefully between those who were
too slow or clumsy to move for him.
Gaborn did not know how long it might take Borenson to fetch the woman, so he wandered back to the shadows thrown by
the inn. His Days followed. Together they stood, annoyed by a cloud of honeybees. The front of the inn here had an "aromatic
garden" in the northern style. Blue morning-glory seeds were sewn in the thatch of the roof, and a riot of window boxes and
flowerpots held creeping flowers of all kinds: palest honeysuckle dripped golden tears along the walls; mallow, like delicate
bits of pearl, fluttered in the gentle breeze above the snow-in-summer; giant mandevilla, pink as the sunrise, was nearly
strangled by the jasmine. And interspersed with all of these were rose vines, climbing every wall, splotches of peach. Along
the ground were planted spearmint, chamomile, lemon verbena, and other spices.
Most northern inns were decorated with such flowers. It helped mask the obnoxious scents of the market, while herbs grown
in these gardens could be used for teas and spices.
Gaborn stepped back into the sunlight, away from the heavy perfume of the flowers. His nose was too keen to let him stay.
Borenson returned in a few moments with his big right hand resting gently on Myrrima's elbow, as if to catch her should she
trip on a cobblestone. It was an endearing sight.