The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm
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Название: The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection

Автор: Megan Lindholm

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Классическая проза

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isbn: 9780007555215

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СКАЧАТЬ where he knelt on a separate dock, retying a line on a pin. No doubt she thought herself a safe distance from Ki to speak about her, but voices carried strangely in the marsh. Ki kept her eyes averted, carried on with her work. Dead trees reared up from the marsh, their branches festooned with a slimy, pinkish moss. It partially hid the couple from Ki’s eyes. But Ki saw the look of annoyance on Lars’s face as he pushed back his long hair and squinted up at Katya.

      ‘I didn’t hear you come up,’ he greeted her.

      ‘You don’t seem to notice anything about me anymore, Lars. Look at her. Cannot she at least wear a smock and trousers like the rest of us?’

      Lars looked as he was bidden. He saw Ki carefully pulling up a fresh crystal, eyes intent upon her work. A jerkin of brown leather trimmed her upper body above her coarse brown trousers. Lars and Katya were attired in the loose white farmer’s smocks and trousers of the valley. Lars frowned.

      ‘I doubt that she has even given thought to what she wears,’ he replied. He deftly changed the subject with a courtesy. ‘You have not visited us for some days, Katya.’

      ‘At first I thought to give you time to recover from that hideous Rite,’ Katya explained. ‘But now, of late, when I stop by, you are always out working somewhere with Ki. You must know the story of the Rite has spread far and wide. Some say your own foolishness brought it upon you, but I do not see it so. I have only sympathy for your plight, Lars. I cannot imagine how it must be, outcast from the winged ones’ society.’ Katya put a hand on his shoulder to make him pause so that she could admire the crystal he had just drawn from the water. He lowered it gently into his bucket and rose to move to the next pin. Katya stood squarely in front of him. Ki watched from the corner of her eye. Katya’s thick, honey hair was braided up into a crown on her head. Folded arms framed her soft breasts. Lars rolled his eyes at the look of tenderness she gave him and edged around her.

      She followed to kneel beside him at the next pin. ‘You look so worn, Lars. No one in the valley understands why you do not send Ki packing and get a little peace back into your lives. I think you should all try to forget what happened so that you may heal. You can scarcely forget, with her a constant reminder. I know it wears on your mother. Cora hasn’t sent for me once since it happened. Does she believe I will think the less of her for her misfortune?’

      Lars slowly drew a crystal from the water. ‘She has much to do of late, Katya. Things she must see to alone. She has sent word to the Rite Master that we are in need of a special rite. And she spends much time with Ki. I am sure that she misses your company. But she feels an obligation to Ki, to help her. Katya, if you had been present at the Loosening and had felt the tempest of emotion that Ki encloses, you would understand why my mother feels as she does. Ki must let go of those emotions or burst apart when they ripen.’

      Ki’s ears reddened. Was it thus they saw her? She busied herself with tightening a knot already tied tight. She tried not to hear Katya’s indulgent chuckle.

      ‘That sounds like Cora. Anything little, anything hurt can find a home with her. She is not one to hold a grudge. Look at how she took in Haftor and Marna. Everyone else said she owed her brother’s children nothing. Didn’t he leave her to manage the family holdings alone?’

      ‘My mother did not see it that way,’ Lars replied shortly. ‘They are her brother’s children and as entitled to the family lands as her own.’

      Lars rose and walked rapidly to the next pin. He did not look to see if Katya followed him. Ki’s head was down, her hands busy when Katya shot a glare in her direction. Katya hastened to where Lars bent over the pin.

      ‘Sven’s holdings,’ Katya’s voice was abrupt, blunt, ‘will Ki keep them or sell them?’

      Ki found her eyes glued to Lars’s red face. Glints of anger showed in his pale eyes.

      ‘She has never mentioned it to me, so we have never discussed it. There have been too many other painful topics to be considered. Lands and monies have never come up.’

      ‘It would be a substantial holding, would it not?’ Katya pressed. ‘If half your grandparents’ holdings came to Cora’s children to be divided three ways by her offspring – that’s a full sixth of the family’s holdings that would have been Sven’s, and are now in questionable hands. When Marna comes of age and into her holdings, she and Haftor together will control a full half of the original holding, while you and Rufus will hold two sixths …’

      ‘It is a family matter, for family to consider. Unlike Rufus, I foresee no problems with it. It would not be the first time the holdings were run by weighted votes.’ Lars’s voice was curt, a polite reminder to her that although he spoke to her he regarded the matter as private. He no longer pretended to work at the crystals.

      Ki watched Katya’s chin come up at his tone. She shifted her hands to her hips. She towered over him as he crouched beside the pin and bucket. Her breasts rose as she took a deep breath. ‘A woman would want to know these things before she joined a family, so that she would know how her offspring would fare. She might consider it more advantageous to find a man willing to join with her own family, and she thus would retain her own inheritance rights.’

      ‘I agree,’ Lars replied evenly. ‘She would be a fool not to consider alternate moves. And alternate mates.’

      He rose and shouldered past her to stride to the next pin. She remained standing on the dock, watching him work. Ki glanced swiftly at her face as she moved to her next pin. Katya seemed to be regretting her words.

      Slowly Katya drifted after Lars to kneel beside him again. He rose even as she knelt, going quickly to the next pin. Undaunted, Katya followed him. Ki moved on reluctantly to her own next pin. Every pin was bringing them closer to the junction of the floating docks.

      ‘Did I tell you that I just came from taking a lamb to the Harpy Platform?’ Katya asked in a girlishly contrite voice. Lars moved silently to the next pin. She trailed after him. ‘Father asked after you first, as he always does. He was pleased to hear how well – how well you wear your manhood.’

      ‘Katya,’ Lars groaned warningly.

      ‘And he was full of news of his precious Harpies, as always,’ she went on hastily. ‘He hasn’t changed a bit. When he was with us, he always knew all the news: joinings, births, quarrels, deaths. Father was always talking of it, almost before it happened.’

      Lars picked up his bucket, moved to the next pin. Ki tarried at her own pin, pretending to be having some difficulty with it. But Katya’s voice carried as clearly as ever.

      ‘There has been a tragedy!’ She offered it most pleadingly for his attention. Lars gave in, rocking back on his heels and turning martyred eyes up to her.

      ‘Not in our own aeries, I am relieved to tell you. It was in a lone aerie far to the south of here, a good week’s travel away, though only a few days for a Harpy on the wing. It was a renegade aerie, the Winged Ones there raising a brood alone. Father said they were a loning pair, caring little for keeping peace with other folk. Their attitude in this is not condoned by our own Harpies. Indeed, some of ours are saying they brought it upon themselves. For all that, they still have our sympathy and a promise of aid in their search for vengeance.’

      ‘Vengeance?’ Lars asked slowly. His voice was troubled.

      The buzzing in Ki’s ears suddenly rose in volume. Premonition leaned cold on her.

      ‘A nest destroyed within days of hatching! Done by a Human, СКАЧАТЬ