"Sharon Green - Jalav 3 - Chosen Of Mida" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)

see that I felt pleasure rather than pain at the death Ceralt was fated to find at journey's end. Then, for
some unknowable reason, the male had changed again, once more becoming the Ceralt whose presence
had ever caused me weakness and inner fire, a burning to be held in the strength of his arms, a trembling
to feel the touch of his lips, a consuming need to be used by his manhood. At journey's end, with Ceralt's
death a certainty and quite near, I had bargained with the dark god for Ceralt's life and health, allowing
Sigurr and Mida to believe it was vengeance I sought from the male, a vengeance impossible to claim
from one who no longer lived. Sigurr had demanded a price which I had paid and Ceralt's life had been
returned to him-yet the price had been so great I no longer was as I had been.

I finished the balance of the nilno between my fingers, sucking up the last of the juices before putting my
head back to the tree I leaned upon. My body appeared as it ever had, large of frame, full-breasted, long
of leg, the bruises Sigurr had made long gone, from my flesh, yet was that flesh now dead to the touch of
males. Shortly before my departure from Mida's domain I had sought the truth of the thing, as it had been
some time since Sigurr had touched me and I had thought my body recovered. My quarters contained a
number of male slaves, large, broad, well-built males-were one to discount the look of perpetual fear in
their eyes. I had removed my leather breech and fur boots and had stood myself before them, demanding
that they look upon me and feel the need they were not often allowed to see to. Males find pleasure in
the look of Jalav and so had it been with the slaves, their desire showing clearly beneath the short, foolish
cloth worn about their waists. Their eyes grew bright and their tongues moved to wet their lips, yet when
I lay myself upon the fur before them and commanded them to heat my blood, they were unable to do so.
Much did the males weep with their failure, so badly in need were they, yet they dared not touch me
while my desire failed to be a match to theirs. In disgust and anger I returned them to the wall they
habitually knelt before, backs to the wall and hands locked behind their necks, so their need might not be
seen to in solitary action. Again the males wept, the strain upon their flesh made more evident by the
position they had been commanded to, and then had Mida appeared in her golden mists, to laugh with
great delight at that which I had done to the males. She commended the hatred I showed, a hatred she
had striven to breed within me, and I said naught of the true motives which moved me to act so. Had
there been aught within the males to recall to them their lost strength, surely being shamed and denied so
would have brought it forth to battle the fear laid upon them. I sought for a sign in their eyes that they felt
a desire for lost freedom of action, yet their continued fear of Mida was as clear as the sign Mida and
Sigurr had placed upon me. The males remained slaves, Mida felt pleased, and I-I continued with that
which I was destined to do.

The warmth of the lovely fey tugged at me with fingers of drowsiness, seeking to draw me down to
slumber amid peace and plenty. It had been nearly two hands of feyd since I had discarded the tent
which had kept the life within me in the cold lands, gladly returning to sleeping with naught about me save
a lenga pelt. The leathers and furs I had also discarded, retaining no more than the breech about my loins,
the leg bands for my dagger, the sword belt for my sword. My legs felt the lighter for the loss of the leg
furs called boots, and I gloried in the return of the touch of sweet ground beneath my bare feet. Much
had my previously lost freedom been returned to me-should one discount the presence of the sign placed
upon me by Mida and Sigurr.

My fingers stole toward the life sign which had hung between my breasts since the time I had first
become a warrior, yet memory of what had been done stopped them short of their goal. My life sign was
the sign of the hadat, clawed and fanged child of the wild, carved from the tree marked as mine at my
birth, stained with the blood of the first enemy I had slain in battle. Ever had it hung upon its leather tie
about my neck, yet it, too, was not now what it had been. Its substance was now much like that of
Mida's Crystals, seemingly thin and fragile yet possessing great strength. Within it-within it roiled the
black mists of Sigurr, marking me as his, showing the rot he had begun in my soul. My life sign had ever
been the guardian of my soul, yet now there was little left for it to guard. The Sigurri would know me as a