Отрывок из книги
Jim Kjelgaard
Published by Good Press, 2021
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Ann saw them, looked away and glanced at Ling. He had seen, too, for the fires leaped in his eyes, but he said nothing. Two benches ahead of the sallow spectator, Ann found a seat and Ling dropped beside her. She looked towards the front of the court and, after briefly noting the bailiff and the aging court clerk, fixed her eyes on the man behind the judge's bench.
She had somehow expected to find a venerable figure, an old man with a long white beard. This judge was a young man, she was surprised to see. Even sitting down, he seemed big, and it was not only his physical proportions that made him seem so. His robe of office concealed his upper body, but his head dominated as a rocky crag dominates tree-covered slopes. It was the head of a Viking, she thought, and then rejected the thought. No—it was a head of a man who stood alone. A wealth of fair hair surmounted his face—a face that compensated with strength for a lack of symmetry. Even at this distance, the judge's keen blue eyes seemed to probe Ann's innermost mind and read her thoughts. She had a sudden, powerful notion that she met this man before, so many times that they were old friends, and immediately she knew that she had not.
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