"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 07 - A Time Of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

peaks shining white in the summer sun. To the south the rolling meadows spread out into farmland, dotted
with trees, and here and there a plume of smoke from a farm wife’s kitchen rose like a feather on the sky.
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In his pure boy’s tenor Jahdo sang aloud, swinging his wicker basket in time to the song. He was so
entranced with this wide view, in fact, that he stumbled, stepping out into empty air and falling with a yelp
some four feet down into a gully carved by a stream.

He landed on soft grass and marshy ground, but the basket went flying, hitting the water with a plop and
floating away. He scrambled up, decided that the sandy stream bed offered the best footing, and
splashed after the basket as it rounded a turn and sailed out of sight. Jahdo broke into a shuffling sort of
trot, keeping his feet under the knee-high water, travelling, quite inadvertently, in near silence, hidden by
the banks of the deepening stream. At another twist in the watercourse, he caught his runaway basket,
which had beached itself onto a strip of shore at an eddy. When he picked it up, something shiny caught
his eye, a little disk of metal, pierced and hanging from a leather thong. He grabbed it, hoping for a
dropped coin, but the thing was only pewter, engraved with a strange squiggle. He slipped it into his
pocket anyway, stood for a moment panting for breath, and realized that he heard voices

Just ahead the leafy shadows of trees danced on the water. Up on the banks stood a copse, where a
man and a woman talked on the edge of anger, though they kept their voices down so low that Jahdo
could guess they met in secret. He began backing away, slipped, and fell with a splash and a curse,

‘Here!’ the woman shrilled ‘A spy!’

‘I be no such thing, good lady.’ In a wail of protest Jahdo clambered up. ‘Don’t hurt me.’

Tall, blond, with ice-blue eyes as cold as the northern peaks, a young man jumped down onto the sandy
strip of shore bordering the stream, grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the water. When he
recognized Verrarc, a member of the Council of Five that ruled the city, Jahdo began to stammer
apologies. Verrarc grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him hard,

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Gathering herbs, sir. My sister she be ill. Gwira the herbwoman said she’d treat her, but it was needful
for me to go and do some gathering. To give her due fee, I mean.’

Verrarc threw him to his knees. As he looked up at the tall, hard-muscled man towering over him, Jahdo
felt the world turn all swimmy. Verrarc’s blue stare cut into his soul like the thrust of a knife.

‘He does tell the truth.’ Verrarc’s voice seemed to come from far away.

‘That’s of no moment. Kill him.’ The woman’s voice hissed and cracked. ‘We mayn’t risk - kill him,
Verro!’

Jahdo whimpered and flung up his hands, half-warding a blow, half-begging for his life. When he tried to
speak, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he gasped for breath. Verrarc laid on^ hand on the
jewelled hilt of the sword slung at his hip, then considered him for an achingly long moment. His stare