"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 03 - The Dragon on the Border" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

“Giles,” he rumbled, “have your brothers been bothering your guests?”

CHAPTER THREE

Jim frowned slightly. Was it his imagination that Herrac had put a slight, extra emphasis on the word
“bothered”-the kind of emphasis with which members of a family send signals to each other?

It would be easy to tell himself he had heard no such thing. But he knew this was not true. Now what
was it that Herrac feared his sons might have said or asked that Herrac thought might bother Jim, Brian
and Dafydd-or any one of them, for that matter?

Whatever the message, Giles had evidently reassured his father by ignoring the implication.

Right now he was visibly swelling simply with pride at the reference to his guests. An answer seemed to
tremble instantly on his tongue, and then was choked back. When he did speak it was in a milder voice.

“I think they may just have been as excited and happy as I, to see these gentles and Master archer,” he
said.

“Good,” said Herrac. “William, go tell the kitchen that the serving of food can begin. We can talk and
drink as we are fed.
 “-With your permission, my Lord and Sir Brian?” he added. There was a slight catch in his voice at the
end of the sentence. Dafydd smiled reassuringly at him, to show he understood the knight’s inability to
include even an archer like himself in the formal request.

Again, although the words were a question, an affirmative answer had been practically implied by the
tone of Herrac’s voice. Both Jim and Brian hurried to express their agreement with the idea that dinner
should start. In fact, Jim was very happy that it was starting. He had been put in a position of taking a
little more wine before dinner than he liked, considering that there would be more of it both during and
after dinner. He could always, of course, magically change it to milk in his cup. But right now he was
conserving every scrap of magical energy he possessed.

He had expected that Giles’s actions in France would have been the first subject of conversation.
However, Herrac was evidently a host who had his own idea of how talk at his table should go.
Consequently he engaged the three guests in conversation, himself, while his sons sat silent during the
early courses of the meal.

He was a good conversationalist. But to Jim’s mild puzzlement, Herrac seemed to want to say little or
nothing about himself, his family and lands, or local matters. In fact, when Jim, out of sheer courtesy,
ventured on these topics, Herrac deftly returned the subject of their conversation back to that of his
guests.

They talked about the weather, both this year and last, about the differences between this part of
England and that from which the three of them came, in the south; also, about the various ladies and
activities of the guests, and about the ballad version they had heard of the battle of the Loathly Tower.
This last topic gave Jim and the others an opportunity for which they were grateful, to point out where the
version of the ballad the de Mers had heard was wrong.

The fact was that all the ballad versions were wrong. This, because there had been added to all of them