"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 01 - Sorcery Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

A moment later, and he was remembering the encounter that had brought him to
manhood: how his father had paid for him to enter that darkened room in the back
streets of Altea; the smell of the woman inside it—musky and rank; the feeling of her cool
hands and hot lips upon him; his uncontrollable climax, and the shame that followed.
Yet it was rumored that not only did the men of the northern isles allow their women
to wander freely, but also that they showed off not just their hands and mouths, but their
entire faces, and occasionally even their limbs and chests. The thought of such sacrilege
made Saro's heart palpate. And not just his heart.
His fair cheeks were still flushed from these unclean thoughts when he heard a shout.
Turning around, he saw in the near distance how two of the Istrian elders who sat upon
Istria's ruling council of city-states—Greving Dystra and his brother, Hesto—were
laboriously climbing the stairs to the summit of Falla's Rock. They seemed to be waving
their arms around and calling out. Intrigued, Saro made his way between the pavilions
grouped below the rock, and, shading his eyes, stared up. Atop the rock sat what
appeared to be a young man dressed in a homely brown tunic and long boots, who even
now had scrambled to his feet, clearly embarrassed at being caught in this serious act of
trespass. Greving was shaking his fist at the intruder and Hesto was just clearing the last
stair, when the young man turned to confront them and with an impatient—indeed,
rather extravagant—flick of the wrist pulled loose the cord that held back his hair. The
light struck suddenly off a face revealed to be too finely structured for any boy's, framed
by a flamboyant fall of blazing red, and Saro found that he could not get his breath. Even
at this distance he felt the shock of seeing a girl—with bare legs and arms; and not just
any girl, but a barbarian creature in defiance of all observance and decency, on top of the
sacred Rock—like a physical blow. Quite unexpectedly, his knees became unreliable, and
he sat down hard upon the ashy ground.
When he looked up again, she was nowhere to be seen.
***
IF Katla had hoped to sneak back among the Rockfall clan unnoticed, she was soon to
be disappointed. Cresting the ridge of the shore, she stared down across the dark and
gritty sand to where the faerings and their snoring crew had lain like beached whales only
an hour before; only to find everyone up and about and as busy as ants, under the
watchful eye of her father.
"Sur's nuts," she cursed softly. "Now I'm in trouble."
The Fulmar's Gift lay anchored a hundred yards offshore, bobbing in the pale light of
the newly risen sun. At this distance she looked graceful and sublime, her clinkered hull as
elegant as any swan's breast. But close up, Katla knew, she was a more impressive sight
by far, the fine oak of her strakes marked by years of voyaging in rough northern waters;
her gunwales gouged and split by rocks and collision and the violent grip of enemies'
ax-heads; the soaring neck of her ornamented prow culminating in the fearsome shape of
a she-troll's head, mouth agape and every tooth sharply delineated with loving,
superstitious skill. But of course they'd taken down the provocative figurehead before
entering the neutral territory of the Moonfell waters and laid it in sailcloth alongside the
lowered mast. It would hardly do, Aran had said, to remind their old foe of worse times
when you were preparing to fleece them blind.
A dozen or more of the crew swarmed over her, manhandling great wooden chests and
barrels from their stowage places and lowering them one at a time into one of the narrow
faerings, which shuddered and rocked under the weight of the heavy cargo.
The second of the ship's boats was even now beaching in the shallows. Four men in the
bows leaped out in a flurry of surf, stark white against the black of the land, and hauled
the little boat up the gentle rise as if it were as light as a mermaid. Katla could make out