"David Gemmell - Morningstar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

beat, my eyes streaming tears. Suddenly a voice cut through my thoughts, and my heart
lurched inside my chest.

'Very pretty,' said Jarek Mace. 'It will bring every robber within miles to your
fire!'His appearance had changed since last I saw him. He had grown a thin moustache and
a small beard shaped like an arrowhead; it gave him a rakish, sardonic look. His hair had
been expertly cut, and he wore a headband of braided leather. His clothes were also
different, a sheepskin cloak with a deep hood, a woollen shirt edged with leather and a
deerhide jerkin. His boots were the same, thigh-length, but he had gained a pair of
leather trews that glistened as if oiled. A scabbarded longsword was belted at his waist
and he carried a longbow and a quiver of arrows. He was every inch the woodsman.

'Well, at least one robber has been brought to my fire,' I muttered, angry at the
intrusion.

He grinned and sat down opposite me, laying his bow against the trunk of an oak
tree. 'Now who would rob you, bard? You are all bones and your clothes are rags. I'll
wager there is nothing left in the pocket of your boot?’That's a wager won,' I told him.
'I did not expect to find you here.'

He shrugged. 'I stayed for a while in Ziraccu, then headed north after the
suicide.’Suicide? What suicide?'‘The woman whose jewels I stole. The stupid baggage tied
a rope to her neck and threw herself from the staircase. After that they were really
after my blood. I can't see why, I didn't ask her to do it.'I sat and looked at him in
disbelief. A woman who had loved him so desperately that she had killed herself when he
left her. And yet he showed no remorse, or even sorrow. Indeed I don't think the event
touched him at all.

'Did you feel nothing for her?' I asked him.

'Of course I did; she had a wonderful body. But there are thousands of wonderful
bodies, bard. She was a fool and I have no time for fools.’And who do you have time
for?'He leaned forward, holding his hands out to the fire. 'A good question,' he said at
last. But he did not answer it. He seemed well-fed and fit, though he carried no pack or
blankets. I asked him where he was staying, but he merely grinned and tapped his nose.

'Where are you heading?' he asked me.

'I am heading north.’Stay in the forest,' he advised. 'The Ikenas fleet attacked
Torphpole Port and landed an army there. I think the forest will be safer for a while.
There are plenty of towns and villages here, and the tree-line extends for two-hundred
miles. I can't see the Ikenas invading it; it will be safer than the lowlands.’I need to
earn my bread,' I told him. 'I do not wish to become a beggar, and I have little skill at
husbandry or farming. And anyway a bard is safe - even if there is a war.’Dream on!'
snapped Mace. 'When men start hacking away with swords no one is safe, not man, woman nor
child. It is the nature of war; it is bestial and unpredictable. Face it, you are cut off
here. Make the best of it. Use your magick. I've known men walk twenty miles to see a
good, ribald performance.’I do not give ribald performances,' I told him curtly, the
memory of the meat-pie display surging from the recesses of my mind.