"Tanya Huff - Be It Ever So Humble" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

useless by his side.

"My name is Magdalene." She pushed her hair back off her face. "Who are you?"

"Juan." He edged a little closer. "You a trader?"

"No. I'm a wizard." Over the years, she'd discovered life worked out better if she didn't try to hide
that. It made explanations so much easier when things started happening. And things always did. The
boy looked her up and down and tossed his head. "Ha!" he scoffed. "Tell us another one. Wizards got
gray hair and warts. You're not old enough to be a wizard."

"I'm twenty-seven," she told him a little indignantly. He was a fine one to talk about not old
enough.... "Oh." Juan considered it and apparently decided twenty-seven was sufficiently ancient even
without the gray hair and warts. "What about your clothes, then? Wizards wear robes and stuff.
Everyone knows that." He had a point. Wizards did wear robes and stuff; usually of a dark, heavy, and
imposing fabric; always hot, scratchy, and uncomfortable. Magdalene, who preferred to be comfortable,
never bothered. "I'm the most powerful wizard in the world," she explained as a rivulet of sweat ran
under her bright-blue breast-band, "so I wear what I want."

"Yeah, sure," he snorted. "Prove it."

"All right." She gathered up the multicolored folds of her skirt, jumped down off the cart, and held
out her hand. "Give me your arm and I'll fix it."

"Oh no." He backed up a pace and turned, protecting the withered arm behind the rest of his body.
"You ain't proving it on me. Find something else."

"Like what?" Juan thought about it a moment. "Could you send my sister someplace far away?" he
asked hopefully. Magdalene thought about that in turn. It didn't seem worth antagonizing the village just
to prove a point to one grubby child. "I could, but I don't think I should." The boy sighed. The kind of
sigh that said he knew what the answer would be but thought there could be no harm in asking. They
stood together in silence for a moment, Magdalene leaning against the back of her cart-perfectly content
to do nothing-and Juan digging his toe into the sand. The donkey, who could smell water, decided
enough was enough and started toward the center of the village. He was hot, he was thirsty, and he was
going to do something about it.

As the cart jerked forward, Magdelene hit the ground with an unwizardlike thud. Closer proximity
proved the sand was not as soft as it looked. "Lizard piss," she muttered a curse, rubbing at a stone-
bruise. When she looked up, Juan had disappeared.

She shrugged philosophically and, following along behind the donkey, amused herself by pulling
back an image of Juan as an adult. Long and lean and sleekly muscled, it was a future worth sticking
around for. At some point between now and then, she appeared to have convinced him to let her fix his

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arm. It looked like she'd be staying, at least for a while.