"Jennifer Fallon - Second Sons 02 - Eye of the Labyrinth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fallon Jennifer)

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There was a door to which I found no key:

There was a veil past which I could not see:

The RubÁiyÁt of Omar KhÁyyam

(translation by Edward J. Fitzgerald, 1859)



PART ONE

A CHANGE OF SEASONS

Chapter 1

The worst thing about funerals was the smiles, Morna Provin thought. The wary, tremulous, uncertain
smiles that never reached the eyes. The hesitant, insincere, I-don’t-know-what-to-say-to-you smiles that
everyone wore when attempting to express their sympathy, while inside they recoiled from this blatant
reminder of their own mortality.

Morna walked behind the carriage bearing Wallin’s body down toward Elcast harbor feeling numb. The
first sun was high in the red-tinted sky. Perspiration stained her black silk gown in dark, unsightly patches
under her arms and across her back.

Why do we wear black in this heat? she wondered idly. Or clothes with so many layers?

What half-witted fool invented the petticoat?

The Duchess of Elcast wore a dark veil over her face, which provided her with some small measure of
privacy, but she knew every eye was on her. Did the onlookers think her dignified in her dry-eyed
composure—or cold and unfeeling? She had not allowed herself to cry or even grieve yet; had not
allowed herself to contemplate the future. Morna simply refused to think about it. Rees Provin, her eldest
son and the new Duke of Elcast, walked in front of her. Beside him was his bride of three months,
Faralan. Rees had assumed his duties as duke with a competence that made her feel proud—and more
than a little obsolete. He had organized the funeral, seen to it that his father’s bequests were distributed in
accordance with his wishes, done everything that needed to be done, efficiently and gracefully, without
once asking for her advice or counsel.

Of Morna’s missing youngest son, Dirk, there was no sign; no news for the past two years. Morna
grieved the loss of her second son more than she could describe. To lose a child was a pain no parent
should bear, she thought. To lose the son she had borne to Johan Thorn had been exquisitely painful, a
fact that undoubtedly gave the Lion of Senet and the High Priestess no end of amusement. There had
been no word of Dirk for so long. There were rumors, of course. Rumors that he had fled to Sidoria or
Galina; rumors that he was in the Baenlands. The only thing she knew for certain was that Dirk had