"02 - The Hawk Eternal 1.1a" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

'How did I get here?'

'Caswallon brought you. He is a clansman, a Hunt Master.'

'Why did he save me?'

'Why does Caswallon do the things he does? I don't know. Caswallon doesn't know. He is a man of impulse. A good friend, a terrible enemy, and a fine clansman - but still a man of impulse. When he was a youth he went tracking deer. He was following a doe when he came upon it caught in a Pallides snare. Now the Farlain have no love for the Pallides, so Caswallon cut the deer loose - only to find it had an injured leg. He brought the little beast home upon his back and nursed it to health; then he released it. There's no accounting for Caswallon. Had the beast been fit he would have slain it for meat and hide.'

'And I am like that injured doe,' said Gaelen. 'Had I run into the trees unharmed, Caswallon might have killed me.'

'Yes, you are sharp, Gaelen. I like quick wits in a boy. How old are you?'

The boy shrugged. 'I don't know. Fourteen, fifteen ...'

'I'd say nearer fourteen, but it doesn't matter. A man is judged here by how he lives and not by the weight of his years.'

16

'Will I be allowed to stay, then? I thought only clansmen could live in the Druin mountains?"

'Indeed you can, for indeed you are,' said Oracle.

'I don't understand.'

'You are a clansman, Gaelen. Of the Farlain. You see, Caswallon invoked the Cormaach. He has made you his son.'

'Why?'

'Because he had no choice. As you said yourself, only a clansman can live here and Caswallon - like all other clansmen -cannot bring strangers into the Farlain. Therefore in the very act of rescuing you he became your guardian, responsible in law for everything you do.'

'I don't want a father,' said Gaelen. 'I get by on my own.'

'Then you will leave,' agreed Oracle, amiably. 'And Caswallon will give you a cloak, a dagger, and two gold coins for the road.'

'And if I stay?'

'Then you will move into Caswallon's house.'

Needing time to think, Gaelen broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into the now lukewarm broth.

Become a clansman? A wild warrior of the mountains? And what would it be like to have a father? Caswallon, whoever he was, wouldn't care for him. Why should he? He was just a wounded doe brought home on a whim. 'When must I decide?'

'When your wounds are fully healed.'

'How long will that be?"

'When you say they are,' said the old man.

'I don't know if I want to be a clansman.'