"Silistra - 01 - High Couch Of Silistra" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

I slipped my first and middle fingers within the

band and closed my hand into a fist once more. I wished there was a way to make it smaller, but I knew I would not so deface it. I put my right hand within my left, and both in my lap. I would have to find another way to wear my father's ring. I considered the possibilities until I heard Rathad place the cube back upon the table.
His face was ashen white and his eyes bleary. He leaned his elbows upon the table and supported his chin with one hand. In the other he held the letter. He extended it to me. I shook my head and made no move to take it.
"Not yet," I said. "That which has waited so long can wait a while longer. Summon a runner. I will leave with Santh tomorrow morning. There is much to do before the next sun's rise. If Ristran is still here, I will meet with him in my keep, and we will take our mid-meal there together. If not, then I will do the same with the highest-ranking Day-Keeper you can produce by that time. I will also need the toilet women to help me prepare. Send a chalder also to Jana's room, for she will be high-couch while I am gone." Jana and I thought alike on most social and political issues; she had met her chaldra of reproduction, and I liked and respected her. She would enjoy being high-couch, but not so much that she would be unwilling to relinquish the position when the time came.
"Impossible," Rathad snapped. His face had regained its normal color.
"Which?" I asked.
"All of it. You cannot leave the Well until the chaldric priorities have been determined, if at all. How many chains do you wear? Are all of them meaningless when compared to this adventure? Such tasks are usually carried out before major responsibilities are assumed. The Day-Keepers must decide. I have never heard of a three-hundred-year-old woman, of responsibility and position, romping off to do the chaldra of the mother. Perhaps they will allow it, but not until the papers have been filed, the purifications done, the ceremonies complete. It will

take time." His voice was very loud, his face red. "And your chald. You cannot go without another. It must be made, wound, prayed upon. The chalder will never be able to produce one for you in a matter of hours, should he wish to, which he will not. You cannot possibly leave before Detarsa fourth seventh. It will take the full pass to arrange things. I do not agree with you about Jana. There are those more deserving of such an honor." He rubbed his hand across his face? "But if you insist upon her, she must be readied to take on your duties. AH these things take time. It is now the last of Macara. Give me these twenty-eight days, and when the pass is done, I will not obstruct you. Truly, I do not obstruct you now, but simply remind you of the forms to which you must attend. Perhaps the Day-Keepers will uphold you. The circumstances here are very unusual. But whatever comes to be, you must meet your fate with an eye to the traditions of this Well, and with dignity and grace."
"I know you mean well, Rathad, and that you would not obstruct me. I ask you again to attend to these things for me. Only summon for me the Day-Keeper and the chalder, and the others that I need. I feel certain that this matter can be arranged in a way acceptable to all concerned. If I am wrong, then I have but taken mid-meal with the Day-Keeper, and discussed certain matters with the high-chalder. I will take Santh to the Liaison First's tomorrow, whatever the outcome, so I will need the fitter and the toilet women. I will let the subject of Jana rest for the present, but the rest must be done." I smiled my most winning smile.
"I think I should like parr and eggs, fresh fruit, cheese, and wine. Perhaps enough for three, for the high-chalder might also be hungry. Do hurry, for midday is close upon us."
Shaking his head, a smile playing across his lips, Rathad strode to the mirrored doors with a swirl of his iridescent web-cloth robe. I heard his muffled voice giving instructions to the runner just outside. I

sighed with relief. I had been unsure I could persuade him.
When he reentered, he did not sit again behind the table, but came to lean against it by my side, so close that I could see every white curling hair that poked its way through the straps of his thonged sandal. He handed me the old yellowed envelope once again, and this time I took it.
I broke the seal and withdrew the sheet within. The hand was sure and strong. There was no greeting.
"The woman I seek, whose name the envelope bears, is all of a color, the color of the spring sun rising, with hair of molten bronze that brushes the ground. In my vision it seemed that this woman and I were of a kind. I will never know. To her I say: 'Guard Astria, for you may lose it, and more. Beware one who is not as he seems. Stray not into the port city of Baniev. And lastly, look well about you, for your father's daughter's brother seeks you.'
"If you succeed, you will be lauded, even as I am lauded, for you will accomplish more than you attempt. Be strong, for the father will surely help his daughter."
It was signed "Astria Barina diet Hadrath." I read it twice. It seemed that every hair on my body stood away from my flesh. It is said that obscurity is the cloak of the forereader. My great-grandmother had drawn that cloak close about her in the writing of this message. That it was meant for me, and no other, was beyond doubt. But no one is as he seems; I had no intention of visiting Baniev, far up the coast; and I had no brother. Her encouragement made even less sense. My search was of personal import only, and my mother had said it was a testing, so no help from my father would be forthcoming.
I had no fear for Astria. The Well was in the same hands that had guided it these three hundred years. But I would take care.
I shook my head and handed the perplexing oracle to Rathad.

I felt most discomfited, yet I was glad my great-grandmother's message had reached me. It would be a great lever with which to pry the Day-Keepers from their conventions.
"What sense do you make of it, Estri?" said Rathad, frowning at the letter in his hands.
"Very little," I replied, "but I will look more sharply about me, and you must see the affairs of the Well with great care."
"Doubtless there is a hidden meaning," he mused. "Doubtless," I agreed. "But perhaps it is too well-hidden."
"I would take all pains to avoid Baniev, were I you," he continued.
"I will avoid," I announced, "not only Baniev, but
Baniese also, and products bearing that city's stamp."
"Has it occurred to you," my mother's brother asked,
"that much time has passed since Hadrath's death,
and the father you seek may be no longer among the
- living?"
"It occurred to me," I admitted. "But the message of my mother said he awaits me, and it was she who chose the point in time at which I would assume the chaldra. If he is dead, it is by accident and not by age or infirmity. I must seek him. Who knows how long the bronze people live? Not I." Rathad grunted and sucked his teeth. "I yield." He sighed. "If it was known that you would take this chaldra and make this journey eight hundred and forty years ago, then, by the Day-Keepers' Clock, you must make it, and I must give you whatever help I can."
He reached behind him for the silver cube, and handed it and the letter, which he placed carefully within the envelope, from his pale hands into my copper ones.
"Run, child," said he, bending to kiss my cheek, "or you will keep the Day-Keeper waiting."

II.
The Liaisons, First arid Second
When I could restrain Santh's need to hunt no longer, I found a resting place in the shade of two large boulders, removed the surcingle from about his black-furred girth, and let him loose. With a great leap and a snap of his mighty wings, he was off, bounding and gliding, silent, deadly. Four bounds took him from my view. There is nothing on Silistra to compare with the speed of a hulion at the hunt.
While I waited for him to return, cool and comfortable in the late-morning shadows, my back against the larger boulder, I reviewed the events that had brought me here to the trail that would lead, by nightfall, to the house of the Liaison First, M'lennin, my former couchmate.
My mid-meal with Ristran had produced some surprises, and a satisfactory outcome. The Day-Keepers are a mysterious, solitary lot, and rarely frequent the Wells. I had supposed, somewhat naively, that his interest would be only for the objects of antiquity I possessed. I read his desire when we touched hands in greeting, and the fantasy deep within his mind was an easy one for me to fulfill. I pleasured him while he lay back on the amber cushions, matching my actions to the picture I had pulled from his subconscious. Thus I delivered him his dream, and the taste of him was thick and overly sweet, the taste of a man long denied.
It had been so quickly done that the food upon the low thala table was still warm when we seated ourselves to eat.

We struck a bargain that benefited us both. I would leave the cube and letter with the Liaison, who would deliver the originals into Ristran's hands. I would take with me copies which I knew M'lennin's star technology could provide. In exchange for these priceless artifacts, Ristran waived all formalities and ceremonies usually associated with the assumption of chaldra, including the need for a new, virgin chald, and upheld me in the face of the chalder's wrath. After a perfunctory blessing, my old chald was cut from me by the chalder's hand, the red chain woven into the already existing belt, and certain alterations made in the chald's construction. These were the addition of a hidden lock, and a tiny key which slipped into a compartment in the lock itself when not in use. Thus I could remove the chald at will, rather than wearing it soldered about my waist. Before I snapped the lock shut, I had drawn the width of the chald through the band of my father's ring, so securing the ring to my body.
The other considerations I had from Ristran were equally valuable. He had been unable to decipher the script on the ring, or name the race of people to which my father belonged, so he suggested that I travel to Arlet. There he would provide me with an expert in off-world culture and language, in such a way that secrecy might be maintained. I accepted, only afterward realizing that Arlet lies uncomfortably close to Baniev, that port city which I had intended to avoid. But by the time I had recollected my geography, Ristran was long gone, and I was already making my way across the plain that separated the Liaison's keep from Well Astria.
With the help of the two toilet women, I had made what I considered the supreme sacrifice. I had cut my ankle-length bronze mane. It had been my trademark. I could do little about my skin tone, but it had become fashion in Well Astria, and to a lesser extent in Port Astrin, our dependent city, for the women to spend long hours beneath the sun, gilding themselves with oils and ointments, that their skin might glow

golden in the manner of Well-Keepress Estri. With my hair now so shorn that it barely covered my buttocks, I could be any Astrian well woman of high position. My chald was thicker than most, but whatever degree of anonymity I could foster would serve me.