"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 02 - Wild Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

Her mother's yellowbread was known across all the islands, though she
baked it rarely now that the cost of the flowers that gave up their stamens
to the spice that gave it its distinctive taste and color had become so
expensive. The crocuses grew only in the foothills of the Golden Mountains
on the southern continent, and this was one reason Gramma Rolfsen cited
as clear evidence that the Eyrans had been driven out of their rightful
homeland: for how otherwise would yellowbread have become a staple of
the Northern Isles when all the southerners did with the flowers was to
crush them for dyeing?
Katla gave the knife thrower a distracted smile, then started up the hill
toward the hall. Breakfast first, she thought; then some serious plans to be
made. She passed the tumblers, dressed not in their bright motley but in
ordinary brown homespun, with casks of water and stallion's-blood wine
balanced precariously on their heads, then some more of Tarn's women
stumbling down the path with a freshly dead cow which seemed to be
refusing to cooperate with them. It would, Katla thought, watching them
wrestle awkwardly with the stiff-legged carcass, have been far simpler to
joint and carve the creature up at the hall and haul down a portion apiece,
or to have butchered it down on the strand, close to the ship. The
mummers were not always the most practical of folk, for all their skill and
tricks. Toward the end of the procession she saw her twin brother Fent
carrying a long, finely made box of polished oak. Katla's eyes narrowed
suspiciously.
"What've you got there, fox-boy?" she said, stepping in front of him so
that he was forced to halt. She knew the casket well enough: Uncle Margan
had made it as a gift to her father by his brother-bylaw, for keeping his
sword in, "now that we are no longer at war and you will be providing for
my sister by becoming a great landsman." Bera liked to tell the story of
how Aran's face had fallen, thinking Margan had brought him a new
sword, and how long it had taken for him to recover his manners
sufficiently to thank him for the box alone.
Fent looked surprised at first to see his twin up and about; then he
turned shifty. He had not shaved in several days, Katla noticed with some
surprise, for her brother was vain of his looks and never let a beard grow
to cover them up. Now, however, a fine orange fluff had coated his chin
and upper lip like some sort of exotic mold. "It's for Tarn," he mumbled,
and tried to press past her.
Katla stood her ground. "There's only one sword in Rockfall good
enough to find Tarn's favor," she said grimly, "and that's my carnelian,
which I have my own plans for." She nipped forward and neatly tipped the
lid of the casket. Inside, on a bed of white linen, lay the Red Sword. Katla
swore. "Who said you might take the finest blade I ever forged and give it
away to a mummer?"
Fent colored, but his chin came up pugnaciously. He snapped the lid
shut, barely missing her hastily withdrawn fingers. "Father said Tarn Fox
should have it as part payment for the voyage. It's tainted now, anyway."
It was said that the blood of a seither would make the blade that had
drawn it chancy and untrue, liable to turn on its owner.
"Even so, no one asked me."
 "You were dead to the world."