"Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea 5 - The Other Wind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

yearning as for something dear and lost, forever lost. He was used to that; he had held
much dear, and lost much; but this sadness was so great it did not seem to be his own.
He felt a sadness at the very heart of things, a grief even in the coming of the light. It
clung to him from his dream, and stayed with him when he got up.
He lit a little fire in the big hearth and went to the peach trees and the henhouse to
gather breakfast. Alder came in from the path that ran north along the cliff top; he had
gone for a walk at first light, he said. He looked jaded, and Sparrowhawk was struck
again by the sadness in his face, which echoed the deep aftermood of his own dream.
They had a cup of the warmed barley gruel the country people of Gont drink, a boiled
egg, a peach; they ate by the hearth, for the morning air in the shadow of the mountain
was too cold for sitting outdoors. Sparrowhawk looked after his livestock: fed the
chickens, scattered grain for doves, let the goats into the pasture. When he came back
they sat again on the bench in the dooryard. The sun was not over the mountain yet,
but the air had grown dry and warm.
"Now tell me what brings you here, Alder. But since you came by Roke, tell me first if
things are well in the Great House."


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Le Guin, Ursula - [Earthsea 05] The Other Wind

"I did not enter it, my lord."
"Ah." A neutral tone but a sharp glance.
"I was only in the Immanent Grove."
"Ah." A neutral tone, a neutral glance. "Is the Patterner well?"
"He told me, 'Carry my love and honor to my lord and say to him: I wish we walked in
the Grove together as we used to do.'"
Sparrowhawk smiled a little sadly. After a while he said, "So. But he sent you to me
with more to say than that, I think."
"I will try to be brief."
"Man, we have all day before us. And I like a story told from the beginning."
So Alder told him his story from the beginning.
He was a witch's son, born in the town of Elini on Taon, the Isle of the Harpers.
Taon is at the southern end of the Sea of Ea, not far from where Solea lay before the
sea whelmed it. That was the ancient heart of Earthsea. All those islands had states and
cities, kings and wizards, when Havnor was a land of feuding tribesmen and Gont a
wilderness ruled by bears. People born on Ea or Ebea, Enlad or Taon, though they may
be a ditchdigger's daughter or a witch's son, consider themselves to be descendants of
the Elder Mages, sharing the lineage of the warriors who died in the dark years for
Queen Elfarran. Therefore they often have a fine courtesy of manner, though
sometimes an undue haughtiness, and a generous, uncalculating turn of mind and
speech, a way of soaring above mere fact and prose, which those whose minds stay
close to merchandise distrust. "Kites without strings," say the rich men of Havnor of
such people. But they do not say it in the hearing of the king, Lebannen of the House
of Enlad.
The best harps in Earthsea are made on Taon, and there are schools of music there, and
many famous singers of the Lays and Deeds were born or learned their art there. Elini,
however, is just a market town in the hills, with no music about it, Alder said; and his
mother was a poor woman, though not, as he put it, hungry poor. She had a birthmark,
a red stain from the right eyebrow and ear clear down over her shoulder. Many women