"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 11 - The Fire Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

Branoic shrugged and refused to look at him.

‘Owaen?’ Nevyn put in. You’d better stop poking at that eye. Let the
chirurgeon look at it. Tell him I said to make you up a poultice to draw the
swelling off.’

‘I will.’ Owaen hesitated, then turned on his heel and strode off.

Very well, lads,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’d best be getting back to my chamber. I
-’ He stopped at the sight of Lilli, trotting across the cobblestones towards
them. ‘So you’ve come down? No doubt you’re worried about your
betrothed.’

‘I am, my lord,’ Lilli said, ‘if you’ll forgive me.’
 ‘Of course. The memory work can wait till later.’

Nevyn left Branoic in Lilli’s care and strode across the ward to the side
broch that housed his tower room. He wondered if Lilli realized that
Branoic had as much of a gift for dweomer as she did. Once the wars were
done, and they married, he was planning on teaching both of them.
Normally a dweomermaster could take only one apprentice at a time, but
the circumstances were hardly normal. He owed Branoic a deep debt from
an earlier life, when the person who was a burly silver dagger now had
been not only a woman, but Nevyn’s betrothed, Brangwen. I failed her so
badly then, he thought. May the Great Ones grant that I may redeem
myself now! Yet even though the thought carried the force of a prayer, no
omen came to him, as if the matter lay beyond the power of the Great
Ones to control.
Up in the big half-round room of the women’s hall, warmth and
comfort reigned. When Bellyra walked in, her maidservant took her cloak,
curtsied, and hurried off to the bedchamber. Near the hearth, where a fire
crackled, the princess’s serving women rose to greet her. Through the
wickerwork partition that separated the hall from the sleeping rooms, she
could hear the nursemaid’s voice, singing the two little princes to sleep for
their nap.
‘Your highness, you look exhausted,’ Degwa said. ‘Do you think it’s
wise, the way you climb around the towers and suchlike?’

‘Most unwise, I’m sure,’ Bellyra said. ‘But it’s better than brooding
about the baby and wondering what’s going to happen to me once it’s
born.’
Degwa winced. Bellyra took her usual chair close to the fire, but she sat
spraddled, propped up by cushions. Degwa sat opposite. Elyssa brought a
cushioned stool for the princess’s feet, then fetched a chair for herself and
placed it beside.

‘My poor highness! Degwa said. ‘You look so uncomfortable.’

‘I am,’ Bellyra said. ‘And tired, too.’