"Kerr, Katharine - Westlands 01 - A Time Of Exile v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

"No doubt," Aderyn said. "My heart aches for any father with a son like that."
Aderyn drank several goblets of water, then lay back exhausted on the pillows. He was in Halaberiel's luxurious chamber, he realized, and it was full of people. Over by the unglazed windows the other elves were sitting on the floor in grim silence. Two of the prince's guard were standing in the doorway to wait upon their liege's orders. At the polished wood table, the chirurgeon was packing up his gear and talking quietly to his young apprentice.
"I'll make a decision about young Dovyn tonight," Addryc said. "The chirurgeon tells me you'd better rest for a while, and I want you there to testify as the victim of this outrage."
"Well and good, Your Highness, but what about the land?"
The prince turned to Halaberiel, who merely shrugged.
"If naught else," Addryc ventured, "my decree about the sacred burial ground will stand in all perpetuity."
"Indeed?" Halaberiel turned to Aderyn. "I'll consider the matter later."
Addryc nodded in defeat. For a few moments he hovered there uneasily, then took his leave with a gracious bow and a few muttered words about letting Aderyn rest. Once the chirurgeon was gone, too, the other elves got up and moved closer to Aderyn's bedside, all twenty of them in a disorderly circle.
"I say we ride out of here and go burn Melaudd's dun," Calonderiel said. "That blow was intended for the banadar."
There was a muttered chorus of agreement.
"Oh, hold your tongue, Cal!" Halaberiel snapped. "Since when do we visit the son's crime on the mother? And there's more than one woman in that dun."
"Well, true, but it would have been satisfying, somehow, to see his tents go up in flames."
"We should just move to the west and let them have the rotten land," Jezryaladar put in. "Who wants a cursed thing to do with men like this?"
"What?" Albaral snarled. "And let the horse turds win?"
Eight or nine men began talking and arguing at once. Halaberiel shouted them into silence.
"Now listen, I'm minded two ways. It depends on what Addryc does to atone for Dovyn's crime. If he offers me fair justice, well, then, I say we take the compromise. We're not doing this just for ourselves. The People need the merchants and their iron and grain, and we have to be able to guard that death-ground. There's a lot more of the Round-ears than there are of us. They can afford a wretched war a lot better than we can."
Calonderiel started to speak, then thought better of it. Everyone else nodded in agreement as Halaberiel went on.
"But what we do next depends on what happens with young Dovyn. If I decide to take the compromise, think of it this way: if we control the Gwynaver, we control one of their main routes north. If they want to ride up our river, we can say no and have their prince behind us."
"That river turns west a ways up north," Calonderiel expanded the thought. "If we can block a main route west, so much the better."
"Good, Cal. Now that's thinking." He glanced at Aderyn. "You're dead pale, Councillor."
"I need to sleep. Take the lads away, will you, but please, by the gods of both our peoples, keep them out of trouble."
Close to sunset, Aderyn woke from the pain of his wound. He found strong wine in a flagon by his bed, drank some to ease the ache, then lay quiet for a while, watching the late golden sun cast long shadows across the Bardek rugs on the polished floor. He was just considering getting up and trying to light some candles when there was a timid knock at the door.
"Come in."
Much to his surprise, Cinvan the Bearsman hurried into the room and knelt beside the bed in sincere humility. As he looked down into Cinvan's hard young face, Aderyn was remembering looking up at this same soul in another body-Tanyc as a seemingly giant young man, and him a small boy of seven. It was a shock to run across Tanyc's soul at all, and even more of one to find him reborn so soon.
"And what can I do for you, lad?" Aderyn said.
"Well, I don't truly know. I shouldn't be here at all, I suppose. Am I tiring you? I can just go away."
"If you're troubled enough to come here, then I'll certainly listen. I take it the news of what happened in the chamber of justice has gotten itself spread around."
"Just that, but I'll wager you don't know the half of it yet. Garedd said I shouldn't be bothering you like this. Garedd's somewhat of a friend of mine, you see, and he usually does the thinking for the pair of us, but I had to come ask you. You see, they say Addryc's as mad as mad at Lord Dovyn, and he wants to have him flogged like a common rider for drawing on you."
"You're right-I hadn't heard that."
"So, well, you see, our young lord saved me from getting flogged once, and so I thought, well, maybe, you being a councillor and all, you'd see things a bit different than most, and speak up for mercy, like."
"I usually speak up for mercy whenever I can, so you can put your heart at rest about that. But I'm afraid that the matter's likely to be out of my hands."
Cinvan nodded, thinking this over. He was much like Tanyc, Aderyn decided, probably as arrogant in normal circumstances. Yet Aderyn was touched that he would break all protocol to plead for mercy for his young lord.
"How's that cut?" Cinvan said. "From what I hear it'll heal up clean, but it ached my heart, to think of my lord dishonoring himself by hurting an unarmed councillor. Uh, well, I mean, I'm sorry you're hurt, too."
"My thanks." Aderyn began to see why this Garedd generally did the thinking for Cinvan. "Well, maybe the prince will think differently about flogging your lord tonight, when his rage has had a chance to cool. He's not going to want to offend Lord Melaudd, after all."
And yet it turned that this reasonable statement was overly optimistic. After the evening meal, the prince called a meeting in his chamber of justice. By candlelight they assembled, Aderyn and Halaberiel, Melaudd and Dovyn, the grave gray councillors, the priest of Bel, the nervous young scribe. Addryc laid the ceremonial sword of Aberwyn onto the writing table to open the court. Candlelight sparked on the golden blade and glittered on the jeweled hilt and the hand guard, formed into a dragon shape. Addryc sat down behind the table and motioned to Dovyn to kneel in front of him, a harsh gesture that made Melaudd wince.
"We are here to consider what to do with you, Lord Dovyn. Let me remind you of your fault. Just when the victory you desired was within your grasp, you turned it to defeat. You insulted a man of royal blood. You broke every law of order by drawing your sword in my presence and my dun. In your clumsiness, you wounded not your target, which would have been grave enough, but an unarmed man who had no chance to defend himself. You spilled blood in the prince's chamber of justice. You have brought a grave shame to your father's heart. You have disgraced your kin and clan. If your father were to pronounce you exiled, I would put my seal on his decree without a moment's thought."
Dovyn slumped almost to the floor, his head bowed, his face drained of all color.
"Do you have anything to say in your own defense?" Addryc said.
"Naught, Your Highness," Dovyn whispered.
"So I thought. Tieryn Melaudd, do you have aught to say for your own son?"
"Naught, Your Highness, except that I love the young cub." He paused, honestly baffled, staring around the chamber as if he still couldn't believe that he was here to witness his son's disgrace. "Truly, I've tried to raise him right. I feel his shame as mine. Freely will I offer to pay the prince the full blood-price for his councillor, just as if my son had killed the man, not just wounded him."
"You what, my lord?" Halaberiel sat straight up in his chair. "Is it the custom of your country to buy justice, then?"
"My prince, please," Aderyn said. "You don't understand the laws of Eldidd. He's not trying to buy justice, but to fulfill it. Every man has his lwdd, his blood-price. If he's killed or maimed, the criminal's kin must pay that price to his clan. Melaudd is being incredibly generous to offer so much without even waiting for the prince's decree."
"I see." Halaberiel turned to Melaudd. "Then my apologies, my lord, for my misunderstanding."
Melaudd only nodded as if he no longer cared what the prince might or might not do. A faint look of disgust lingered around Halaberiel's mouth, as if he'd bitten into rotten fruit.
"You're truly fortunate, my prince," Addryc said, "to have such a wise man of our people to advise you. But in my heart I agree with you. The lwdd is indeed fit recompense for the wrong done Councillor Aderyn, and in his name, I accept it from you, Melaudd." He jerked his head at the scribe, who began writing. "But there remains the fact, Lord Dovyn, that you broke geis by drawing steel in my dun. If this offense had happened in the great hall, when you and the prince had been drinking mead, well, then, I'd be minded to mercy. But in cold blood, in perfect sobriety, you drew a blade in the very chamber of justice, and you did so in front of your outraged father's very eyes."
Dovyn was slumped so low that his forehead almost touched the floor. Melaudd leaned back in his chair, his hands twisted together, the broad knuckles bloodless.
"Therefore," Addryc went on, "I demand a recompense for this fault beyond the wounding of Councillor Aderyn. The laws have no lwdd to pay for their bleeding, Tieryn Melaudd. The penalty for this offense is twenty-five lashes in the public ward."
"Your Highness." Melaudd rose and flung himself down beside his son in the same smooth motion. "I'll beg of you, if ever I've served you, to spare him the shame of it. Not the lashes so much, Your Highness, but the shame-strung up in the ward like a common rider."
"I fear he's comported himself like a common rider, Tieryn Melaudd."