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

ingenious tubes made from sheep's intestines while a slave sat by the
bedside and stroked his throat to make him swallow. Being bed-bound
had converted all that food into great swells and bloats of flesh: the hair,
and the smell of putrefaction which seemed to boil up out of every orifice
Tanto owned, well, that seemed a just punishment from the Goddess.
No matter how hard Tanto railed against the barbarian Eyran raiders
who had, he swore, burst into Selen Issian's pavilion, intent on rape and
destruction and wounded him in his brave defense of the girl, Saro knew
his brother too well. Tanto had elaborated on the tale so much now,
embroidering ever more unlikely details into it, that Saro suspected a far
simpler explanation for the events and their consequences, and one that
was far more in keeping with what he knew of his elder sibling. Tanto was
not used to being denied anything: so when the marriage settlement with
Selen had fallen through for lack of funds, there was surely only one reason
why Tanto would have gone to the girl's tent: to take (by force if necessary)
what he thought should rightfully be his. And succumbing to a stab wound
to the genitals spoke of a woman's desperate defense rather than a brawl
with a band of northerners, especially since the only other marks Tanto
bore looked suspiciously like the tiny crescent-shaped cuts which might be
made by a woman's fingernails. They said the Goddess looked after her
own?
No one else had remarked on those small wounds, distracted, no doubt,
by the horrifying nature of his other wounds, but Saro had been forced to
spent a lot of time tending to his brother after the attack. It had been
Favio Vingo's way of punishing him for giving half his winnings from the
horse race at the Allfair to the nomad child whose grandfather Tanto had
butchered, rather than donating it to the marriage settlement, as a more
dutiful (and hard-hearted) son should have done.
He collected the plate and spoon, and felt for a moment as he did so a
disconcerting buzz of energy tingle through his fingertips, as if some ghost
of Tanto's temper haunted the objects and was finding a way to discharge
itself through him. As he left the room, he could feel his brother's eyes
boring into his back all the way. In the corridor outside, he shook his
head: being alone with Tanto was an unpleasant experience. It could do
strange things to his head.
It was a blessed relief just to breathe clean air as he crossed the
courtyard to run the plate, spoon, and cloth under the tap from the water
butt there. Tanto would doubtless lie to Mother that Saro had not fed him,
that he had taken the food away without waking him for his meal, or most
likely had eaten it himself. And Saro would probably end up reviled and
punished in like manner: by being refused any supper. But as he felt the
sun beat down on his face and was assailed by the hot, spicy scents of the
honeysuckle and marigolds which had been planted against the
whitewashed wall there, Saro did not care. He was used to his brother's
spitefulness, and to his parents taking Tanto's word against his own. So
much for the loving bonds of family, he thought. There were times when
he felt he had made a deeper connection with the nomad folk he had met
at the Allfair than with those with whom he had spent his entire life.
He crossed the courtyard and leaned against the wall, looking out across
the landscape. Their villa stood on a hill below which tiers of cultivated