"Jo Walton - The Rebirth of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

risk here.

"You're right, so, though it's looking for peace I am these seven years now. My name is my word,
and I'll not speak it aloud here in the wild world where any might hear me. You're right, and I'll be going
off now and not pollute your hearth at all." He starts to turn away back off the porch into the driving rain,
which is coming with the West wind almost straight against the side of the house. I can't bear it.

"Didn't I say I'd give you sanctuary?" I blurt, although I had not, and the indwellers all reproach me
insistently. "Come on in out of the rain and let me close the door." I turn and lead the way inside. I wait at
the door to the front room while he takes off his soaked jacket and shoes. I feel awkward, embarrassed.
He leaves them dripping on the hall floor. The indwellers have no good advice for what to say to a
possibly bloodcursed man who knows the proper words of address and to whom one has just granted
sanctuary. Fool of a girl says the one who took my breath, fondly, as she retreats back into the
muttering at the back of my head.

When he is done I lead the way into the front room, put the candle on the coffee table and sit down.
He waits until I offer. "Sit down." He perches on the arm of one of the suite chairs. I feel compelled to
apologise. "I'm sorry it's candles, but the electricity was blown out by the storm about an hour ago."

"Don't worry," he says, in his mellow voice.

I leave the candle with him and go to the kitchen, treading on more toys in the dark. I light another
candle by the stove, quickly find what I need and set it on a plate. Then I grab a bottle of wine from the
fridge and two thick tumblers that Emrys uses for juice—I can't risk reaching up in the dark to the high
shelf where I keep the wine glasses. I put it all on a tray, the candle as well. It isn't long before I am back
in the front room. He has moved from the chair and is standing in front of the shrine in the corner, the
candle held in his hand. Ah. I hadn't remembered that, when I brought him in here, I was just thinking that
it was tidy.
 He turns to me, and in the light of two candles I can see his grief-lined face clearly. "Could you tell
me, Lady, do you serve the High Gods or the Mother here?" He knows you're not a Christian from
the words we welcomed him with, and he recognises holiness, which is a good sign. I smile, and
inside me the indwellers chuckle. What could a man tell after all, from some shapes of stones? But
another speaks a warning deep inside What manner of man will know your allegiance before he
gives his name?. So I simply smile, and set down the tray wordless, sprinkle the salt on the bread,
break it, stand again and offer it to him. He accepts it, looking at me.

"It's safe you are under my roof, and none to harm you," I say, old ritual words. "My name is
Deirdre MacAran and a hundred thousand welcomes to you at my hearth." I bite the bread. It tastes salty
and yeasty, the taste of being a host.

"Thank you for your welcome. I will uphold the peace of your hall whatever comes to me. My name
is Colin O'Niall." He bites into his bread, chews, swallows. He has not moved from the shrine.

I pour the wine, fumbling with the bottle and the thick glasses on the tray, making a little time to
answer his question. The storm is still loud outside. I am not sure how much I can trust him, though he has
sworn to the hall-peace. There is a gap of strangeness inside me. It seems perfectly natural to the
indwellers, my ancestors, that a man might come asking sanctuary using these words, and know how to
answer me. Yet to me who live yet in the twenty-first century and know that nothing like this happens in
the world any more, it seems very strange. It is hard to know on what level to react. It is almost like a
dream, with a dream's certainties. Unlike a dream, reality has consequences. I must be careful. I finish