"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 2 - Witches of Wenshar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

stopped. She turned back, chin elevated, cornflower blue eyes
regarding him as if he were a beggar.
He'd had runs up to enemy seige towers under fire that he'd
enjoyed more. "My lady," he said, his raw, rasping voice neither loud
nor furtively quiet, "I'm sorry. I had no right to say what I said to you
today, and I ask your forgiveness for speaking stupidly." He forced his
single eye to meet hers, aware of the stares of her disciples and of the
others-servants, grooms, laundresses, guards, Taswind, and
Nanciormis-in the Hall. He felt as he had during the Rites of Manhood
in his village in the north long ago, stripped before the eyes of the tribe
and obliged to take whatever abuse the shaman chose to give him.
Only in that case, he thought dryly, at least those who watched him
approved of what he sought to gain by the humiliation. That had been
the last time, he realized, that he had ever asked for anything.
The chilly sweetness of her voice was as he remembered it from
the gardens. "Do you say that because you are truly sorry," she asked,
"or because you know that I will not share my wisdom with you unless
you apologize?"
Sun Wolf took a deep breath. At least she had answered him, and
spoken to him as if she would listen to what he said. "Both," he said.
It took away any possibility of an accusation of untruth and left her
momentarily nonplussed. Then her blue eyes narrowed again. "At least
you're honest," she said, as if sorry to learn of it. "That is the first thing
you'll have to learn about the arts of wizardry, if you pursue them,
Captain. Honesty is almost as important to the study of wizardry as is
purity of the body and the soul. You must be honest-utterly honest-at
all times, and you must learn to accept the honesty of others."
 "You weren't too pleased about my honesty this afternoon."
She didn't miss a beat. "Those were not your true feelings. If you
look into your heart, I think you'll find that it was your jealousy of me
speaking what you wished to see, not what you actually saw."
With great effort Sun Wolf stifled the first words that came to his
lips. She can teach me, he reminded himself grimly. She's the only one
I have found to teach me. The rest of it is none of my affair. But he
couldn't resist saying, carefully keeping the irony from his voice, "I
expect you'd know more about that than I would, my lady."
From the corner of his eye he saw the impassive Starhawk put her
tongue in her cheek, raise her eyebrows, and look away. But Kaletha
nodded gravely, accepting his words on their face value and taking
them as a deserved tribute to her clarity of insight. "It is something that
comes when one has achieved a certain level of understanding." Behind
her, her disciples nodded wisely, like a well-trained chorus. "You must
learn to accept discipline, to understand self-control. They may be alien
to you ... "
"I've been a warrior all my life," Sun Wolf said, annoyed. "There is
discipline involved in that, you know."
"It isn't at all the same thing," she responded serenely, and he bit
back, How the hell would you know?
Patronizingly, she went on, "I've studied long and hard to achieve
my power, Captain. It is my destiny to teach. With meditation and with