Exile’s Return. Raymond E. Feist

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ confiscated their crossbow and any sharp utensil he judged capable of inflicting serious injury and had piled them up out of their reach. He trusted his instincts, as a hunter and a warrior, to awaken him should either of his reluctant companions attempt to harm him, so he had slept well.

      After rising slowly, Kasper started returning the implements to their proper locations; the woman would have work to do. He had spent the balance of the previous afternoon and evening pointing at objects and asking their names: slowly unravelling this new language. He had learnt enough to surmise that their dialect was related to ancient Keshian, spoken in the Bitter Sea region a few centuries before. Kaspar had studied Empire history as much as any noble boy was forced to and vaguely remembered references to a religious war which had sent Keshian refugees fleeing west. Apparently some of them must have landed nearby.

      Kaspar always had possessed a flair for languages, though he now wished he had spent a little more time speaking Quegan – an offshoot of the same Keshian dialect these people’s ancestors had spoken. Still, he was getting along well enough if he ever decided to stay and farm around here.

      Kaspar looked at the boy and said, ‘You can get up.’

      The boy rose. ‘I can get out?’

      Kaspar realized his inaccuracy and corrected it. ‘I mean get up, but if you need to go outside, do so.’

      Despite his early behaviour towards them, Jorgen had expected to be beaten or killed, and Jojanna had expected to be raped. Not that she wasn’t attractive enough in a weather-beaten fashion, Kaspar conceded, but he had never acquired a taste for unwilling women – not even for those who feigned willingness because of his wealth and power.

      The woman rose and pulled aside the small privacy-curtain while the boy rolled up his bedding and stowed it under the table. Kaspar sat on one of the two stools. She went to the banked fire in the hearth and stirred the embers, adding wood. ‘You need wood?’ Kaspar asked.

      She nodded. ‘I will cut some more this morning, after milking one of my cows. She lost her calf to a mountain cat last week.’

      ‘Is the cat troubling you?’

      She didn’t understand his question so he rephrased it, ‘Is the cat returning to take more calves?’

      ‘No,’ she said.

      ‘I’ll cut the wood,’ said Kaspar. ‘Where is the axe?’

      ‘In the …’ he didn’t recognize the word, and asked her to repeat it. Then he realized it was an oddly pronounced variant of the Keshian word for ‘shed’. He repeated it, then said, ‘I will work for my food.’

      She paused, then nodded and started to prepare the daily meal. ‘There is no bread,’ she said. ‘I make it the night before.’

      He inclined his head, but said nothing. They both knew why she had not baked last night. She had sat fearfully, waiting for him to assault her, while he repeatedly asked odd or pointless questions about the names of things.

      Slowly, he said, ‘I will not harm you or the boy. I am a stranger and need to learn if I am to live. I will work for my food.’

      She paused, then looked into his eyes for a moment. As if finally convinced, she nodded. ‘There are some clothes that belonged to my …’ she spoke a word he didn’t understand.

      He interrupted. ‘Your what?’

      She repeated the word, and said, ‘My man. Jorgen’s father.’

      The local word for husband, he gathered. ‘Where is he?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Three …’ Again a new word, but he didn’t bother to interrupt; he’d find out later if she meant days, weeks, or months. ‘… ago he went to market. He never came back.’ Her voice remained calm and her face emotionless, but Kaspar could see a sheen in her eyes. ‘I looked for three …’ Again a word he didn’t understand. ‘Then I came back to care for Jorgen.’

      ‘What is his name?’

      ‘Bandamin.’

      ‘A good man?’

      She nodded.

      Kaspar said nothing more; he knew she must be wondering what would have happened if Bandamin had been home when he had shown up. Kaspar said, ‘I’ll chop wood.’

      He went outside and found the axe in the shed next to a small pile of logs. He saw Jorgen feeding some chickens and waved the boy over to him. He motioned to the dwindling pile and said, ‘Need more soon.’

      The boy nodded and started speaking quickly, pointing to a stand of woods on the other side of the meadow. Kaspar shook his head and said, ‘I don’t understand. Speak slower.’

      It was clear Jorgen didn’t understand him either, so Kaspar mimicked the boy talking rapidly, then spoke slower.

      The boy’s face brightened in understanding and he said, ‘We will cut down a tree over there.’

      Kaspar nodded and said, ‘Later.’

      He was still weakened by his ordeal of the last few days, but he managed to carry enough wood into the hut to keep the fire going for almost a week.

      When he put the last arm-load into the bin next to the hearth, Jojanna said, ‘Why are you here?’

      ‘Because I need water and food to live.’

      ‘No, not here on the farm,’ she said slowly. ‘I mean here …’ she waved a circle around her, as if indicating a larger region. ‘You are –’ a few words he didn’t understand ‘– from far away, yes?’

      ‘A foreigner,’ he nodded. ‘Yes, from very far away.’ He sat down on the stool. ‘It is hard to tell without …’ He paused. ‘I don’t have the words –’ he said at last ‘– yet; when I do, I will tell you.’

      ‘Truth?’

      He studied her face for a moment, then said, ‘I will tell you the truth.’

      She said nothing as she looked him in the eyes. Then with a single nod, she returned to her work in the kitchen.

      He stood up. ‘I will go and help the boy.’

      Kaspar went outside and saw Jorgen heading into the meadow. He stopped briefly, realizing he had no idea what needed to be done. He had owned tenant-farms in Olasko, but the closest he had ever been to one was riding past on horseback. He had a vague idea of what they produced, but little concept of how they did it. He chuckled to himself as he set out after the boy. He couldn’t start learning quickly enough, he decided.

      Felling a tree was far more difficult than Kaspar had anticipated, given that he had only seen it done once before, when he was a boy. It had almost landed on top of him to the evil delight of Jorgen, once the initial fear of injury had passed.

      He had stripped off all the branches and then cut the bole into manageable sections, which he had lashed up with large leather straps that should have been fastened to a horse’s harness. He had discovered that the family’s only horse had vanished along with Jorgen’s father, so now Kaspar СКАЧАТЬ