"Robin Hobb - Soldier Son 02 - Forest Mage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

FOREST MAGE
BOOK TWO OF
THE SOLDIER SON TRILOGY
ROBIN HOBB

FOREST MAGE. Copyright © 2006 by Robin Hobb.

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-075763-2
ISBN-10: 0-06-075763-9


CHAPTER ONE

FOREST DREAMS
There is a fragrance in the forest. It does not come from a single flower or
leaf. It is not the rich aroma of dark crumbly earth or the sweetness of
fruit that has passed from merely ripe to mellow and rich. The scent I
recalled was a combination of all these things, and of sunlight touching
and awakening their essences and of a very slight wind that blended them
perfectly. She smelled like that.
We lay together in a bower. Above us, the distant top of the canopy
swayed gently, and the beaming rays of sunlight danced over our bodies in
time with them. Vines and creepers that draped from the stretching
branches above our heads formed the sheltering walls of our forest
pavilion. Deep moss cushioned my bare back, and her soft arm was my
pillow. The vines curtained our trysting place with their foliage and large,
pale green flowers. The sepals pushed past the fleshy lips of the blossoms
and were heavy with yellow pollen. Large butterflies with wings of deep
orange traced with black were investigating the flowers. One insect left a
drooping blossom, alighted on my lover’s shoulder, and walked over her
soft dappled flesh. I watched it unfurl a coiled black tongue to taste the
perspiration that dewed the forest woman’s skin, and envied it. I lay in
indescribable comfort, content beyond passion. I lifted a lazy hand to
impede the butterfly’s progress. Fearlessly, it stepped onto my fingers. I
raised it to be an ornament in my lover’s thick and tousled hair. She
opened her eyes at my touch. She had hazel eyes, green mingling with soft
brown. She smiled. I leaned up on my elbow and kissed her. Her ample
breasts pressed against me, startling in their softness.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, tilting back from the kiss. “I’m so sorry I had to
kill you.”
Her eyes were sad but still fond. “I know,” she replied. There was no
rancor in her voice. “Be at peace with it, soldier’s boy. All will come true as
it was meant to be. You belong to the magic now, and whatever it must
have you do, you will do.”
“But I killed you. I loved you and I killed you.”
She smiled gently. “Such as we do not die as others do.” “Do you yet live
then?” I asked her. I pulled my body back from hers and looked down
between us at the mound of her belly. It gave the lie to her words. My
cavalla saber had slashed her wide open. Her entrails spilled from that
gash and rested on the moss between us. They were pink and liverish-gray,