"Pierce, Tamora - Daughter Of The Lioness 02 - Tricksters Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

The old woman grumbled under her breath and tugged her jacket around her shoulders.
Aly popped the nut into her mouth and chewed it thoroughly. "I have the Sight," she told them. "I can see magic, or death, or sickness, or godhood. I can see poisons in food.
If I concentrate a little differently, I can see distant things clearly, and tiny things in complete detail."
"So those liars signs you told us to look for were not real?" Fesgao asked. "The looking aside, the blinking?"
"Oh, no!" Aly reassured him. "A blink, a fidget, a change in body position, those are all perfectly good measures of a lie told by an amateur." She smiled wickedly. "I just have a little something extra." She looked at Ochobu. "I spent the whole winter thinking you'd told and they didn't care."
"I dorit care," Ochobu snapped. "It is foolish to rely on magic, any magic, including the Sight. The Rittevons have that much right, at least—they know too many people use magic as a crutch, and they are wary of it."
"So says the mage," grumbled Ulasim.
"And who would know the truth of that, if not a mage?" demanded his mother.
Nawat cracked a nut by slamming it on the counter. Everyone turned to stare at him. "Are we done with all the scoldings?" he wanted to know, his face as open as always. "Because I wish to know what use I will be in this oversized, befouled nest you call a city. I could see plain enough when I came. You have more arrow makers here than you will need." At home in Tanair, he had made arrows with special fletchings, arrows that would kill mages and arrows that flew straight despite the wind.
"But there is need for the crows," Chenaol said.
"No," replied Nawat flatly. "You have your human crows in the palace and the city and the households, picking up whatever news they have. My people cannot enter houses, and there is very little food for us here. We are here to win our wager with the god, not to sit about preening ourselves." He glanced into Aly's upturned face and away. "/ am here to do more than preen myself."
Ulasim nodded. "He has a point," the big raka admitted. "At Tanair the crows were our watchers and patrols."
"We'll find something for him to do," Aly said impatiently. The thought that Nawat might leave made her chest go tight. "Gods help us, we only arrived today."
No one else commented. Nawat was considered to be under Aly's command. The rebel commander had agreed that winter to make their subordinates and work areas separate for the most part, though they would share any news and special requests at the nightly meetings. On occasion some areas might need to work with different ones, but those cases would be determined as they arose. It was a rebel's way to fight, rather than the way a government would do things. If the Crown captured some of them, the rest of the movement would still be able to continue the rebellion.
Aly looked at Ulasim. She knew it was pathetic to change the subject to get rid of that tight feeling near her heart, but what she had to say was important. "In the meantime, may we now bring Sarai and Dove in on this? The country is trembling on the sword's edge—we could all feel it on the way here. It's the girls' destiny at play."
Ochobu made a face. "To risk all on the discretion of a pair of girls . . . Not yet."
"I agree," Ulasim replied. "At least, not as regards Lady Sarai's discretion."
Someone rapped on the door. It could not be a stranger to the household, since the servant s wing was kept under watch. Ulasim stood to open the door and admitted Dove.
"Sorry," she said, finding a vacant chair. "It was hard to get away from my chess game. I had to let Aunt Nuritin win. I'll never hear the end of it now."
Ochobu glared at her son. "You could have said she knows."
Aly hid a grin as the big footman shrugged. "She came to me after supper to tell me? he explained to his mother. "It seemed only reasonable to ask her to come here."
"It's so obvious Petranne could see it," Dove said wearily. "The way the raka watched us all the way to Tanair and back, the crows, a household with all the servants but Aly who are raka full- and part-bloods, servants who used to work for the Temaidas. . . . My mother belonged to some branch of the Haiming clan, didn't she? A small one that escaped the lu-arin's eyes. It explains a great deal."
Fesgao smiled at her. "You are right, my lady, it does."
"The timing makes sense," Dove continued. "We have only two people with a claim to the Rittevon throne left. Dune von is a child; his regents make Stormwings look tenderhearted. But do you mean to kill Elsren? Because Sarai and I will never permit that."
"We shall ford that river when we come to it, my lady," Ochobu said. "For the present we gather allies, identify our enemies, and look for the regents' weaknesses. There is unrest all over the Isles. It will be war by summer's end."
"Then don't tell Sarai or Winna," Dove advised. "It's quite possible Winna will have Elsren swear a blood oath not to try for the throne. She hates it at court." Dove looked around at the raka's faces. "You were going to tell Winna-mine, weren't you? Or is she supposed to die in the fighting?"
"We have made no decision in that area, either, my lady," Fesgao said with grave respect. "Many things must take place before we shall be forced to consider such choices."
Dove leaned back in her chair. "Tell me," she ordered.
Aly watched as the raka straightened, new life and purpose in their eyes, even Ochobu's. One after another they explained how things stood. Doves arrival had given them something real to look at. She might have been only their fii-
ture queen's little sister, but she had the same blood in her veins and the same quick wits.
When they had finished, Dove massaged her temples. "It's so much bigger than I could have imagined," she murmured. They all waited for what she would say next. Finally Dove took a deep breath and asked, "Have we a symbol? Some ordinary thing, so the common people and the middle classes will know that our country is changing?"
She's good, thought Aly with appreciation. Right to the heart of the matter. I hope Sarai does half as well.
"A symbol?" inquired Fesgao. "Like a kudarung?"
Dove shook her head. "Something more subtle. Something that looks like a message, that can be put in places where officials won't notice it."
"Something to shake the regents up," murmured Aly.
"If the regents are shaken up," Fesgao pointed out, "they will not take it kindly, I warn you."
"No, I suppose not," Dove acknowledged. "But they're already behaving stupidly. I saw all the new checkpoints in the city. It's the way the Crown chooses to deal with mindless hooligans. You know what the luarin nobility says—the raka get restless every thirty years, and have to be kicked down. We need to tell them this is no clump of restless raka. This is a movement."
"If we make the regents angry," Chenaol said, "they will slam our folk with more laws, more taxes."
"More arrests," added Fesgao. "More punishments. More executions."
"They cannot arrest what they cannot find," Nawat pointed out. "When the People, animals, claim a territory and drive rivals from it, they mark it. What if you find a way to mark your territory for all to recognize?"
Ulasim rubbed his neck as if it ached. "Please do not tell me we must go out and piss on every street corner," he said, a faintly pleading note in his voice.
"Then only the People will know it is your territory, not the Crown," Nawat replied reasonably.
"A symbol," Dove told them. "Scratched into plaster, written on a proclamation that's been nailed up, dug in the dirt, painted on a door or a shutter. Something easy—"
"An open shackle with a few links of chain attached," suggested Chenaol eagerly. "For freedom."
"Harmless enough," Ulasim admitted slowly. "Easy to spread, easy to set folk talking." He looked at Dove. "We'll do it."
"Aly?" Dove whispered in the darkness of her bedroom. Junai was still downstairs with her father.
Aly had not been asleep. She'd been expecting this. "We'll go outside. There's a pavilion the mages fixed in the garden. It's shielded from just about everything inside the walls as well as outside."
Dove and Aly wrapped themselves in robes and padded downstairs. Once outside, Aly led her mistress to the open-sided building where she had talked to Nawat. The girls sat for a moment on the couch, enjoying the cool, damp spring breeze.
At last Dove looked at Aly. "I wish you had told me."
"In all honor, I couldn't," Aly explained. "They expected me to keep my silence, and it is their plot. I am a newcomer."