"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 10 - The Black Raven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

keep Raena away from a thing she seeks. Who are you?'
'Niffa be my name.'
'Jahdo's sister!'
'And is it that you know our Jahdo?' In her joy Niffa forgot her fear. 'Fares
he well? Oh please, do tell me,'
"Well and safe, truly, and you'll be seeing him in the spring.'
The joy rose like a wave of pure water. All at once Niffa lay awake, tucked
into her blankets with a ferret asleep on her chest and grey dawn flooding the
window.
'Tek-tek, whist!' She shook the ferret awake, then picked her up and put her
down on the bed next to her. 'It's needful I tell Mam straightaway.'
She found Dera awake, kneeling by the hearth and laying twigs upon blazing
tinder. In the big bed at the far side of the room Lael still slept, wrapped
around a pillow and snoring. Dera was concentrating on the fire, but she'd
apparently heard her daughter approach.
'Early for you to be up and about,' Dera said.
'Mam, I did have the most wonderful dream, and it be one of my true ones, I do
know it deep my heart. I did meet a woman who does know our Jahdo. He be safe
and well, she did tell me, and he'll be returning in the spring.'
At that Dera did look up, and the warmth of her smile glowed like the
spreading fire.
'I'll look forward, then,' Dera said. 'It does my heart no good, all this
looking back.'
'I've got somewhat else for you to look forward to, Mam. I've not had my
monthly bleeding.'
Dera rose, studying Niffa's face.
'Now here, don't you be getting your hopes up, lass. Grief will do strange
things to a woman; it well might dry her up for a while, like.'
Niffa felt tears rise, choked them back, and turned away. She felt her
mother's gentle hand on her shoulders.
'I know how much you did love your Demet,' Dera said. 'Mayhap the goddesses
will bless you after all. There be a need on us to wait and see.'
When Dallandra woke in the morning, she lay in bed for a while, considering
Jahdo's sister. How had Niffa got into the Gatelands of Sleep, and why did she
seem so at home there? Later in the day Dallandra tracked Jahdo down, finding
him at the servants' hearth in the great hall with Cae, an orphan boy who
worked in the kitchens. On the smooth stones in front of the fire, they were
playing with little wooden tops. For a moment she watched as each boy set his
top spinning with a flick that bumped it against another. She waited until
Jahdo had lost a match, then called him away. They stood to one side where
they wouldn't be overheard.
'I want to ask you somewhat about your sister,' Dallandra said. 'And it's a
very odd question.'
Very well, my lady,' Jahdo said. 'Niffa be a very odd lass, so fair's fair.'
'Odd? How do you mean, odd?'
'Oh, all the folk in Cerr Cawnen, that's what they did always say. Our Niffa,
she be an odd little soul.' Jahdo thought for a moment. 'She did see things.
And she had dreams.'
'Tell me a bit more about that.'
'We'd be sitting at our fire, and you'd look at Niffa, and her eyes -they'd be