"Robin Hobb - Soldier Son 01 - Shaman's Crossing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

build any better than a termite does.” Parth’s low-voiced answer
implied that I was stupid for asking.
My father has always had excellent hearing. “Nevare,” he said.
I nudged my horse to move up alongside my father’s taller mount.
He glanced at me once, I think to be sure I was listening, and then
said, “Most plainspeople did not build permanent towns. But some,
like the Bejawi folk had seasonal settlements. Franner’s Bend was
one of them. They came with their flocks during the driest part of
the year, for there would be grazing and water here. But they didn’t
like to live for long in one place, and so they didn’t build to last. At
other times of the year, they took their flocks out onto the plains and
followed the grazing.”
“Why didn’t they stay here and build something permanent?”
“It wasn’t their way, Nevare. We cannot say they didn’t know how,
for they did build monuments in various locations that were

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Shaman's Crossing - Robin Hobb - Soldier Son 01


significant to them, and those monuments have weathered the tests
of time very well. One day I shall take you to see the one named
Dancing Spindle. But they did not make towns for themselves as we
do, or devise a central government or provide for the common good
of their people. And that was why they remained a poor, wandering
folk, prey to the Kidona raiders and to the vagaries of the seasons.
Now that we have settled the Bejawi and begun to teach them how
to have permanent villages and schools and stores, they will learn to
prosper.”
I pondered this. I knew the Bejawi. Some of them had settled near
the north end of Widevale, my father’s holdings. I’d been to the
settlement once. It was a dirty place, a random tumble of houses
without streets, with rubbish and sewage and offal scattered all
around it. I hadn’t been impressed. As if my father could hear my
thoughts, he said, “Sometimes it takes a while for people to adapt to
civilization. The learning process can be hard. But in the end it will
be of great benefit to them. The Gernian people have a duty to lift
the Bejawi folk and help them learn civilized ways.”
Oh, that I understood. Just as struggling with mathematics would
one day make me a better soldier. I nodded and continued to ride at
his stirrup as we approached the outpost.
The town of Franner’s Bend had become a traders’ rendezvous,
where Gernian merchants sold overpriced wares to homesick
soldiers and purchased hand-made plainsworked goods and trinkets
from the bazaar for the city markets in the west. The military
contingent had a barracks and headquarters there which was still the
heart of the town but the trade had become the new reason for its

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Shaman's Crossing - Robin Hobb - Soldier Son 01