"Sorcerer's Son" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phyllis Eisenstein)

The steward signaled one of the armory guards to come over and pick up Cray’s bundle of knightly accoutrements. “We will pack these in your saddlebags, if there is nothing more you desire from this room.”

“These are sufficient,” said Cray.

“I have ordered a pallet laid for you in the main hall, that you may have a good sleep before you leave us.”

“I thank you, steward. Now all we are left with is the matter of price.”

“Ah… price.” He waved the guard away, with instructions to ask the captain of the guard which animal was Cray’s. “My lord said a fair price, but in truth I don’t know what a fair price would be for these things. They are not new. And their loss is not significant to us, as you can easily see. I might say… six pieces of silver for the lot.”

“That seems a small price,” said Cray.

“Ah, doubtless you could conjure up whatever amount I asked. I hope it would not turn to ash as soon as you passed beyond the horizon.”

Cray pulled the purse from his belt and spilled six silver pieces into his hand. “My mother does not deal in magic metals,” he said, “else I would not need to buy my armor from you, steward.”

The steward nodded once. “A good point indeed.”

“The money is real, I promise you.” Cray offered the coins on his open palm. “You have set the price, sir. Take it.”

Gingerly, the steward took it. After he had closed the money in his fist, he said, “I must confess, young sir, that I have never trafficked with a sorcerer before.”

Cray smiled to hear himself so described, but he made no attempt to explain that he scarcely knew a hundredth of his mother’s magic. “I will not harm you. You have dealt fairly with me. More than fairly.”

The steward turned toward the door. “If you will follow me, then, I will show you to your bed.”

The pallet was not as comfortable as his bed at home, but it was softer than a mossy pad under a tree. Cray was tired, and not even the snoring of other sleepers in the hall or the occasional bark of a restless dog could keep him awake. He roused at last to morning streaming through the high windows and a group of pages walking among the sleepers to announce breakfast and to clear the floor of pallets. The page who dragged Cray’s pallet to a storage place in a far corner was not much younger than Cray himself. Cray wondered if the boy were bound to be a knight or if, like the steward, he would always remain a servant of the House. The boy was slight. If he planned to be a knight, he had not yet started training. Cray compared his own youthful muscles to the page’s

slenderness, and he felt he was well-begun in his life’s goal. His father, he thought, would be proud of him.

A breakfast of bread and cheese and milk was set out on a long table below the dais, and as Cray was eating his share, the steward approached and motioned him aside.

“I have inquired, young sir, but there is none here who remembers your father. I am sorry.”

Cray swallowed his milk at a draft. “I thank you for your efforts, good steward.

Truthfully, I had no great hope of finding any trace of him here. But I could not visit without asking. Is my horse saddled and ready?”

“It is.”

Scanning the room, Cray said, “I see your lord is not about. You will have to give him my farewell.”

“I will do that, young sir.”

They walked together to the stables and then with Gallant to the gate. While the steward stood beneath the arch, flanked by the men who guarded the entry to their fortress, Cray led his horse out into the open sunlight and mounted.

“Good luck with your quest,” said the steward. “There is a quest, is there not?”

“There is,” said Cray. He raised a hand in salute and wheeled his horse about. Before him, the road between the fortress and the town stretched out full of foot traffic even so early in the day. He rode toward the town, but at the east gate, from which he had first seen the Great House, he turned Gallant aside and followed the wall around the