"02 - The Hawk Eternal 1.1a" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

'You like him?' asked Gaelen.

'Like him? He infuriates me. But I love him. I don't know how his wife puts up with him. But then Maeg's a spirited lass.' Oracle rose from the bedside and moved to the table, filling two clay goblets with water. Passing one to Gaelen, he sat down once more. 'Aye, that's the story to give you a taste of young Caswallon.'

'Three years ago at the Games, he saw and fell in love with a maid of the Pallides, the daughter of their Hunt Lord Maggrig. Now, Maggrig is a formidable warrior and a man of hasty and uncertain temper. Above all things on this earth he hates and despises the Farlain. Mention the clan name and his blood boils and his face darkens.

'So imagine his fury when Caswallon approaches him and asks for his daughter's hand. Men close by swore his veins almost burst at the temples. And Maeg herself took one look at him and dismissed him

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for an arrogant fool. Caswallon took the insults they heaped on him, bowed, and departed to the archery tourney, which he won an hour later. Most of us thought that would be the last of the affair.' Oracle rose and stretched his back, then moved to the fire and added two thick logs. He sighed and refilled his goblet.

'Well, what happened?' urged Gaelen.

'Happened? Oh, yes. I'm sorry, my boy, but the mind wanders sometimes. Where was I? Caswallon's courting of Maeg.' Returning to the bedside, he sat down again. 'Many of the Farlain enjoyed the jest for such it had to be. Maeg was almost twenty and unmarried and it was considered she was a frosty maiden with little interest in men.

'Two months later, in dead of night, Caswallon slipped into the Pallides lands, past their scouts and into the heart of Maggrig's own village. He scaled the stone wall of the old man's house and entered Maeg's room unseen. Just before dawn he awoke Maeg, stifled her scream with a kiss, climbed from the window and was gone into the timberline. Oh, they chased him all right. Fifty of the fleetest Pallides runners, but Caswallon was the racer to beat them all, and he made it home without a scratch.

'Now, back at Maggrig's house there was rare fury, for the young Farlain hunter had left a pair of torn breeches, a worn shirt, and the hide cut out in the shape of a new pair of shoes. Soon the entire highlands chuckled at the tale and Maggrig was beside himself with fury. You have to understand the symbolism, Gaelen. The trousers, shirt and hide were what you'd leave a wife to mend and make. And the fact that he'd spent the night alone in her bedroom made sure no other man would marry her.

'Maggrig swore he'd have his head. Pallides hunters spent their days hoping Caswallon of the Farlain would darken their territory with his shadow. Finally, some three months later, as winter took its hold making the mountains impassable, the Pallides withdrew to their homes. On this night in the long hall, where the clan chiefs were celebrating the Longest Night, the doors opened and there, covered in snow and with ice in his beard, stood Caswallon.

'He walked slowly down the centre of the hall, between the tables, until he stood before Maggrig and his daughter. Then he smiled and said, "Have you finished my breeches and shirt, woman?"

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' "I have," she told him. "And where have you been these last months?"

' "Where else should I be?" he answered her. "I've been building our house."

'I tell you, Gaelen, I would have given much to see Maggrig's face that night. The wedding took place the following morning and the two of them stayed most of the winter with the Pallides. Caswallon would not hear of taking Maeg back the way he had come, for he had scaled the east flank of High Druin - no easy task in summer, but in winter fraught with peril.

'Now, does that help you understand Caswallon of the Farlain?'

'No,' answered Gaelen.

The old man laughed aloud. 'No more should it, I suppose. But keep it in your mind and the passing years may explain it to you. Now strip off that shirt and let me check that wound.'

Oracle carefully cut away the bandages and knelt before the bed, his long fingers prising away the linen from the blood-encrusted stitches. Gaelen gritted his teeth, making no sound. As the last piece of linen pulled clear Gaelen looked down. A huge blue and yellow bruise had spread from his hip to his ribs and round to the small of his back. The wound itself had closed well, but was seeping at the edges with yellow pus.

'Don't worry about that, boy,' said Oracle. 'That's just the body expelling the rubbish. The wound's clean and healing well. By midsummer you'll be running with the other lads at the Games.'

The wound seems wider than I remember,' said Gaelen. 'I thought it was just a round hole.'

'Aye it was - on both sides,' Oracle told him. 'But round wounds take an age to heal, Gaelen. They close up in a circle until there is just a bright tender spot at the centre which never seems to close. I cut a wider gash across it. Trust me; I know wounds, boy. I have seen enough of them, and suffered enough of them. You are healing well.'

'What about my eye?' asked Gaelen, tenderly fingering the bandage.

'We'll know soon, lad.'