"Nancy Springer- Sea King Trilogy 01 - Madbond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

“No.” Soberly he studied me. “You look not much older than I,” he said after a moment.
“Twenty, twenty-two ... Of what age were you when you made your name vigil?”
Days alone on the crags where only the wild sheep came, my straight, yellow hair newly
braided, waiting for the vision that would give me my name—that much I remembered. But
even the thought of a name of my own hurt me with a black pain, and I could not answer. I felt
my shoulders sag, and I could not look any longer at Kor. My eyes shifted; I stared beyond
him. And there, in the shadows of one of the several entrances, stood a stocky old woman,
listening. Her head jutted forward from her stooped shoulders, her jaw thrusting at me like a
weapon. Even as I saw her she strode toward me, hands knotted as if she would strike me,
and I stiffened where I sat, for her creased and weathered face bore a look of such outrage
as I had never seen.
Korridun turned on his seat to look where I was looking and saw her. “Istas!” he barked at
her.
His tone must have served to warn her off, for she stopped. She spat at me some word I
could not understand—such fury was in her, it twisted her speech as it twisted her face. I
think even one of her own people might not have been able to understand her that day. Then
she swung around and strode out with the hurried, scuttling stride of a strong old woman,
and I heard her huffing as she left.
“That is Istas,” Kor told me, “my most valued counselor.” His voice seemed low, and there
was no smile on his face, such as there might have been if her rage were a matter of no
moment. I chose not to ask what it was that Istas had called me, for I felt very tired, and there
was a deadness in me. Kor saw it at once.
“Come,” he said, rising, “let us find you a place to sleep.”
The place was a small chamber in the hollowed rock. A reed wick lighted it, burning dimly in
a shallow stone lamp. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of fish oil, but only for a moment, for I
had not been daintily reared. Moreover, the sweet rushes strewn on the floor offset that odor
nicely. On a sort of wooden platform lay my linden-bark mat and a thick bed of pelts—I
recognized them from the pit. Birc, perhaps, had brought them in here. I made for them
wearily.
“Wait but a moment,” Korridun said, and he left me.
I lay down but did not close my eyes. A chamber of my own to sleep in—I could not help but
feel honored. In the deerskin tents of my people we slept six and eight together, jostling each
other, and only the king ... but I would not think of the king. I got up, pacing like a spotted wild
dog. Perhaps the wolves had once paced in that same way. I had never seen any.
Korridun came back, carrying things for me: a furred doeskin by way of covering—or
perhaps to make me feel at home, a clay basin of water for washing or drinking, a wooden
cuckpot.
Perverse anger welled up in me. “Why are you nurse-maiding me?” I demanded. “You are
supposed to be a king! Do you not have people?”
He set the load down—he must have been stronger than I had thought, to carry the heavy
cuckpot, the pottery, the water. Then he stood and faced me, seeming not at all taken
aback.
“I will not order my people to go where I would not go myself,” he said. I scarcely heard him. I
was raving.
“Do you not have servingfolk? A king who carries a cuckpot!”
“The cuckpot is an improvement,” he said mildly. “I cleaned your ass many a time, up there
in the pit.”
I doubled over as if I had been hit in the gut and sank down on my bed, the anger gone with
my wind. Voiceless, I stared up at him.
“I will not command my folk to do the thing they^fear unless I am willing to do it as well. . . .