"Elizabeth Lynn - Chronicles of Tornor 3 - The Northern Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lynn Elizabeth A)

South the ocean seethed and glittered, speckled with the fishing fleet's yellow sails. East and west of the
city lay the cotton fields. She could not see the pickers with their great sacks over their shoulders, but
she knew they were there. North were the vineyards, out of which she had come seven years back. She
had only gone back twice to visit, the first time to show off her new clothes, the second time for her
mother's burial. She arrived too late, and said her farewells by the grave, trying to recall clearly what her
mother had looked like. That had been four years ago. Now when she tried to, she could not even
remember the outline of her mother's face.

The big blue building to the east, beside the river bank, was the hall of the Blue Clan. Blue banners
waved before it, and from shops and stalls and carts small blue flags declared their owners to be
members of the Guild in good standing. The carts that carried wine barrels from the Med vineyards to
the city had blue streamers on them. Beyond the vineyards lay the Galbareth Fields, where the grain
grew; beyond the grain lay the steppe -- and the mountains. Sorren closed her eyes a moment, and they
loomed in her mind, hard and gray and incorruptible, the way they sometimes loomed in her dreams.

But there were no mountains near Kendra-on-the-Delta. Sorren opened her eyes. The stone from which
the Tanjo was built had come from the Red Hills, through Shanan and the Asech country, a long
journey, days and days away.

She turned to the gate. The gate guard was watching her from his post near the shade of the kava fruit
tree.

"Good day," she said.

He grunted. His dark red shirt was damp with sweat. He had laid his spear down on the stone. She
wondered what Paxe would say if she came suddenly from the Yard, and saw her guard without his
spear.

"Hot," she said.

"Yes," said the guard.

The green peel of a kava fruit lay in the gutter like a piece of green cloth. All the guards ate the kava
fruit when they were on gate duty, but this guard -- he was young, with a small sandy mustache -- had
not yet learned to kick the peel out of sight. He was not going to open the gate for her, either. She
reached to do it herself. He changed his mind and reached, too, and their fingers touched. His were
sticky.

She walked through the iron gate. "Thank you," she said.

He grunted again. The guards were never sure how to treat her. She was a bondservant, but half the time
Arre treated her as if she were her daughter ... and there was Paxe.



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The gate closed. She strolled across the courtyard. Flowers grew along the sides of the path, drooping in