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

life would be like when I grew up to be an officer in the King’s
Cavallas. If I was not with my father, and sometimes even when I
was, Corporal Parth supervised me.
The abrupt change had left me both isolated and unsettled. I sensed
I had somehow disappointed my father, but was unsure of what I
had done. I longed to return to my sisters’ company. I was also
ashamed of missing them, for was I not a young man now and on
my path to be my father’s soldier son? So he often reminded me, as
did fat old Corporal Parth. Parth was what my mother somewhat
irritably called a ‘charity hire’. Old, paunchy, and no longer fit for
duty, he had come to ask my father’s aid and been hired as an
unskilled groundskeeper. He was now the temporary replacement


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Shaman's Crossing - Robin Hobb - Soldier Son 01


for the nanny I had shared with my sisters. He was supposed to
school me in ‘the basics of military bearing and fitness’ each day
until my father could find a more qualified instructor. I did not think
much of Parth. Nanny Sisi had been more organized and demanded
more discipline of me than he did. The slouching old man who had
carried his corporal’s rank into retirement with him regarded me as
more of a nuisance and a chore than a bright young mind to be
shaped and a body to be built with rigor. Often, when he was
supposed to be teaching me riding, he spent an hour napping while I
practised ‘being a good little sentry and keeping watch’, which
meant that I sat in the branches of a shady tree while he slept
beneath it. I had not told my father any of that, of course. One thing
that Parth had already instructed me in was that he was the
commander and I was the soldier, and a good soldier never
questioned his orders.
My father was well known at Franner’s Bend. We rode through the
town and up to the gates of the fortress. There he was saluted and
welcomed without question. I looked curiously about me as we rode
past an idle smith’s shop, a warehouse, and a barracks before we
reined in our horses before the commander’s headquarters. I gaped
up at the grand stone building, three storeys tall, as my father gave
Parth his instructions regarding me.
“Give Nevare a tour of the outpost and explain the layout. Show
him the cannon and talk to him about their placement and range.
The fortifications here are a classic arrangement of defences. See
that he understands what that means.”
If my father had looked back as he ascended the steps, he would

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Shaman's Crossing - Robin Hobb - Soldier Son 01