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

fighting arts, from unarmed combat to sword and spear work, in the outbuildings at Tanair Castle. They
had an unusual teacher for new ways of fighting: Nawat, a young man who had once been a crow. The
duchess saw this practice as much-needed exercise, and both she and her daughters joined in. To the
raka's regret, Sarai refused to continue her lessons in sword-craft after she fought and beheaded her
would-be lover, Prince Bronau, the night he slew her father.

Busiest of all the members of the rebel conspiracy was the newest to join, seventeen-year-old Aly
Homewood. She was in reality Alianne of Pirate's Swoop, the daughter and granddaughter of Tortall's
spymasters, raised from the cradle to compete in the world of international espionage. During the
previous summer she had acted as chief bodyguard to the Balitang children. With the arrival of spring and
the move to Rajmuat, Aly knew she would become the rebellions spy-master. Although the Balitangs'
former housekeeper, Quedanga, has remained in Rajmuat to collect information from long-standing
networks of spies, Aly's specially recruited spies and those they will train have their own unique work
ahead. They will collect information for the rebel leaders to use against their enemies, and conduct
whatever actions of sabotage and psychological operations required to put the raka's enemies at odds
with each other. For sixteen years she studied such work under her father's eye. Now she would do it
herself, for the promise of better leadership for the Isles.

In preparation, Aly used the winter to build a cadre of trained spies, people among the household who
could learn and use all she had to teach. The lessons of these raka and part-raka in their twenties and
thirties included written and spoken codes and code breaking, lock picking, and climbing. She also taught
them sign language, thorough searches, medicines and herbs, and the detection of other spies. Because
she was younger than many of her trainees, Aly treated them in a teasing, grandmotherly way, while they
awarded her the raka nickname ofDuani or "boss lady." Aly also spent time with the raka mage Ochobu,
creating suicide spells and magic detection charms, and with the rebels' armorer, choosing weapons for
her pack and for herself.

Aly dared not tell anyone why she was so eager to take up the mantle of spymaster. To do so, she
would have to reveal her true parentage. The raka would see her as a tool of the Tortallan Crown, while
the forces loyal to the Rittevon king and his regents would see her as a spy. Only one being knew her
true history: the deposed god of the Copper Isles, the trickster Kyprioth. It was he who had brought Aly
to the service of the rebellion that would return him to his seat of power. Although responsible for her
presence, Kyprioth did not speak to Aly throughout the long winter. She assumed he was hiding from the
god brother and goddess sister who had cast him from his Isles: Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess.

Luckily, Aly had the crow fighter Nawat to entertain and delight her through the long months. His
courtship grew more passionate throughout the winter, and he finally stopped offering her bugs to eat.

At the beginning of April, most of the household traveled south to ready the family's home in the capital,
Rajmuat. The family and the remainder of the servants, including Aly, took the following few weeks to
prepare for the move that would change all of their lives completely and irrevocably.




April 23,463 H.E.

Rajmuat harbor, Copper Isles

As the shipGwenna glided through the entrance of Rajmuat harbor, a young woman of seventeen years