"David Gemmell - Morningstar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

very late when Bellin informed me that he would need my room for guests arriving the
following day.

It seemed I had outstayed my welcome.

For the next few months I performed at several weddings and two funerals. I like
funerals; I enjoy the solemnity and the tears. I do not mean to sound morbid, but there
is something sweet and uplifting about grief. The tears of loved ones are more powerful

than any epitaph on a man's life. I have seen the funerals of great men, with many
carriages following the hearse. Great speeches are made, but there are no tears. What
kind of a life must it have been that no one cries for you? There is an eastern religion
which claims that tears are the coins God accepts to allow a soul into heaven.

I greatly like that idea.

Man being what he is, of course, the eastern men pay people to cry for them at
their funerals.

However, I digress. The months flowed by and I struggled to earn enough money to
pay for my meagre requirements. The war was affecting everyone now. Food was in short
supply and the prices rose. The Ikenas King, Edmund, had been true to his word. His army
swept through the land like a forest fire, destroying towns and cities, crushing the
armies of the north in several pitched battles, coming ever closer to Ziraccu.
 There were tales of horror, of mutilation and torture. A nunnery, it was said, had
been burnt to the ground, the Abbess crucified upon the main gates. Several noblemen
captured at the Battle of Callen had been placed in iron cages on the castle walls, and
left to die of cold and starvation.

The Count of Ziraccu, one Leonard of Capula, declared the city neutral and sent
emissaries to Edmund. The emissaries were hanged, drawn and quartered. Left with no
choice but to fight Leonard began hiring mercenaries to defend the walls, but no one
believed they could resist the might of the southern Angostin army.

It was not a good time to be a bard. Few wanted to hear songs of ancient times, nor
listen to the music of the harp. What they desired was to realize their capital and head
for the ports,netting sail to the continent where the baying of the hounds of war would
not carry.

Houses were being sold in Ziraccu for a twentieth of their worth and rich refugees
left in their hundreds every day.

I had intended to wait in Ziraccu until the spring, but on the seventh day of
midwinter - having not eaten for several days - I realized the time had come to make my
way north.

I had no winter clothing and stole a blanket from my lodgings which I used as a
cloak. I wrapped my hand-harp in cloth,

gathered my few possessions and climbed from the window of my room, sliding down