"Patricia A. McKillip - Riddlemaster 1 - Riddle Master of Hed" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

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The Riddlemaster of Hed
Patricia A. McKillip




For Carol
the first eleven chapters




1


Morgon of Hed met the High One's harpist one autumn day when the trade-ships docked at
Tol for the season's exchange of goods. A small boy caught sight of the round-hulled ships
with their billowing sails striped red and blue and green, picking their way among the tiny
fishing boats in the distance, and ran up the coast from Tol to Akren, the house of Morgon,
Prince of Hed. There he disrupted an argument, gave his message, and sat down at the
long, nearly deserted tables to forage whatever was left of breakfast. The Prince of Hed,
who was recovering slowly from the effects of loading two carts of beer for trading the
evening before, ran a reddened eye over the tables and shouted for his sister.
"But, Morgon," said Harl Stone, one of his farmers, who had a shock of hair grey as a
grindstone and a body like a sack of grain. "What about the white bull from An you said you
wanted? The wine can wait--"
"What," Morgon said, "about the grain still in Wyndon Amory's storage barn in east Hed?
Someone has to bring it to Tol for the traders. Why doesn't anything ever get done around
here?"
"We loaded the beer," his brother Eliard, clear-eyed and malicious reminded him.
"Thank you. Where is Tristan? Tristan!"
"What!" Tristan of Hed said irritably behind him, holding the ends of her dark, unfinished
braids in her fists.
"Get the wine now and the bull next spring," Cannon Master, who had grown up with Morgon,
suggested briskly. "We're sadly low on Herun wine; we've barely enough to make it through
winter."
Eliard broke in, gazing at Tristan. "I wish I had nothing better to do than sit around all
morning braiding my hair and washing my face in buttermilk."
"At least I wash. You smell like beer. You all do. And who tracked mud all over the floor?"
They looked down at their feet. A year ago Tristan had been a thin, brown reed of a girl,
prone to walking field walls barefoot and whistling through her front teeth. Now she spent
much of her time scowling at her face in mirrors and at anyone in range beyond them. She
transferred her scowl from Eliard to Morgon.
"What were you bellowing at me for?"
The Prince of Hed closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bellow. I simply want you to