Реклама. ООО «ЛитРес», ИНН: 7719571260.
Pearls and peacock
Blue Seneschal
Danger from the Sea
Gifts from the waterman
In the company of the peacock
Sea Rainbow
The creature in the cage
Jade Bridge
Fortune-telling in the sand
A dangerous rendezvous
Water and Fire
An affair with a waterman
A Wedding in the Realm of the Sea
A blue peacock flew over the rose bushes. Lilothea could see it among the white peacocks that filled the palace grounds. It seemed to have come from some distant overseas kingdom whose ruler had recently wooed her. Many thought his proposal tempting because of the generous gifts brought by the ambassadors and the prospect of an alliance with the strongest power, but the king was in no hurry to agree. The obstacle lay in the customs of a distant country. Instead of one wife the ruler had a harem.
The council of ministers over the plans for her marriage had been going on for quite some time, and Lilothea herself was walking in the garden trying to determine who was singing? No one normally walked in this part of the garden except her. Here was her secret corner with a fountain and a marvelous rose garden. And she didn’t want to leave here to join a harem or even become the only wife of a foreign king, either.
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“Don’t trust the water spirits!” He sang again like a maniac. Was that the only song he had learned while he was being whipped across the sea? Then no wonder he sings only about watermen, for they are the only legends one hears on the sea voyage. Watermen, mermaids, newts, chamois, krakens – she could no longer remember all the names named by the famous sailors and privateers who had sworn allegiance to her father in the great throne room of the palace. But even they, as impertinent as they were, did not intimidate anyone with a dangerous acquaintance with a waterman.
Lilophea was suddenly reminded of a young privateer who had presented her with a large pearl. That had been a year ago. He assured her that he could speak to the spirits of the sea. Once these same spirits called him from the coast late at night, he left to talk to them, and never came back. Lilophea wanted to believe that he had sailed off with smugglers or pirates in search of adventure, rather than drowned in the abyss. She kept his pearl as a memento, having stolen it from her father’s treasury, where it was customary to keep all the gifts sent to the king and his family by the petitioners. And that young man was a petitioner. He had asked for his own ship and crew, but he was gone. All that was left was his gift.
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