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

traps. Dark-haired Lael, going grey in his beard and moustaches, was a tall man, built like a blacksmith,
or so everyone said, while blonde Dera was a mere wisp of a woman even now, after she’d borne three
healthy children and two that had died in infancy. Yet somehow, when she got in one of her rages, no one
thought of her as slight or frail, and her blue eyes always snapped with some new passion or other.

‘Back, are you?’ Lael said with a nod at Jahdo. ‘Help me with the weasels.’

They carried the cages into the bedroom and opened them one at a time, grabbing each ferret and
slipping off its tiny leather hood. As much as they hated the hoods, the ferrets always seemed to hate
having them off even more, twisting round and grunting in your lap. For creatures that weighed no more
than five pounds at the absolute most, they could be surprisingly strong. Jahdo got the first pair unhooded
easily enough, but their biggest hob, Ambo, was always a battle, a frantic wiggle of pushing paws.

‘Now hold still!’ Jahdo snapped. ‘I do know you do hate it, but there’s naught I can do about it! Here,
just let me get the knot undone. It’s needful for you to wear them, you know. What if you ate a big meal
and then fell asleep in the walls? We’d never get you back, and you’d get eaten yourself by one of the
dog packs or suchlike. Now hold still! There! Ye gods!’

Free at last Ambo shook his sable length and chittered, pausing to rub himself on Jahdo’s arm, all
affection now that his work day was over. He backed up for a running start, then leapt and pranced,
jigging round Jahdo’s ankles. When the boy could finally catch him, he dumped Ambo into the common
pen, where the ferret began rummaging round in the straw on some weaselly concern. Dera came in with
clean water in a big pottery dish and a wooden bowl of scraps of jerky. She set them down inside the
common pen, then laid down some fine chopped meat for Tek-tek.
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‘Food for you later,’ she announced to Jahdo.

‘Is Gwira still here, Mam?’

‘She is. Why? Don’t you feel well?’

‘Naught like that. I just did wonder.’

‘Well, then, don’t stand in the straw like a lump! Come out and see for yourself.’

Jahdo followed her out to find his elder brother home, sitting at the far end of the big table and sharing a
tankard of beer with Lael. The eldest of the three and almost a man, really, Kiel was a handsome boy,
with yellow hair like their mother’s, and almost as tall as their father, but slender, with unusually long and
delicate fingers as well. At the nearer end of the table, the herbwoman stood, picking over the herbs
Jahdo had brought back.

‘Be those herbs good?’ he asked.

‘Perfectly fine, indeed,’ Gwira said.

The herbwoman stayed to dinner that night, sitting down at the end of the table next to Dera and across