"Kathryn Sullivan - Oracle of Cilens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sullivan Kathryn)

voyage."

"Ah, but Vel has solved that little mystery. He has decided that you cast spells against
shipwreck."
"And you did not correct him? Arnth, why?"

Arnth smiled at his young wife. "What matter what others believe? Your seercraft has
brought us much good fortune, and I prefer to keep that secret, rather than have you become
haruspex for all of Caere."

He glanced up at the seer still scanning the sky. "Not that that skyreader couldn't use some
competition. Come, sit out of the sun and tell me what you would like if this voyage proves
as successful as the last. A new pair of red shoes? A gold necklace? A bronze coffer for
your cosmetics?" He took her arm to lead her back to the cart.
Ramtha started at the wave of dizziness that followed swiftly upon his touch. She felt the aura
of otherness abruptly close about her as if Cilens, spinner of fates, now stood beside her.
Arnth looked closely at her, then released her arm.

"What do you see, Ramtha?" he asked patiently.
Her voice came from far away. "The ship will not sail today."

"Why?"

The piercing eyes of a goddess were turned upon him, and he recoiled a step before their
gaze. "What is fated, will be. You will lead part of the crew up to the city. The captain and
others of the crew will search the docks, keeping Cumaei ships under close watch. The
Dorians will steal from you."

"What? What will they take?"
But the goddess had gone. Ramtha spread her hands apart. "I am sorry, Arnth. I did not
see."
Arnth frowned. "Dorians stealing from a ship while it is in harbor? That is not like them. They
are pirates upon the sea, but honeyed-tongued on land. Now, the Carthaginians--"

"I saw one of the thieves, one whom you will find. He is a hook-nosed Dorian, and he wears
the tunic of a freeman, although his feet are bare."

"The tunic of a freeman, but the bare feet of a slave," her husband repeated. "I will
remember that."
He studied the distant masts of Dorian ships in the harbor. The Dorians, like his own
people, owed allegiance to no single king. Each city-state was independent of the other,
and Cumae was said to be the oldest of the Dorian city-states. Arnth disbelieved that tale,
having in his younger years sailed to the distant islands of the Dorians' origin and seen older
and far more beautiful cities there. The Dorians were a clever people, talented with stone as
well as with words. They were also contenders for the mastery of the sea, a title claimed by
the Carthaginians as well as Arnth's own people, the Rasena.
Arnth frowned and steered his wife toward her cart. "Much as I would rather have you stay,
Ramtha, if the Dorians plan to attack the ship, you had best return to Caere."

"Go quickly, Septem," he told the slave as Ramtha settled herself within the cart. The