"Hawke, Simon - The Wizard of Camelot 2 - The Wizard of Whitechapel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

reflexes and instincts as sharp and quick as ever.

His grandmother, Igraine, had been a human, as was his paternal grandfather,
Uther. As a result, when Uther raped Igraine, the issue—Arthur—was a normal
human child. But his maternal grandfather, Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall, was of
the Old Race, and Modred's mother had inherited the genes and eldritch powers of
the Old Ones. Morgan Le Fay had been a half-breed, as was Merlin. They both had
the same blood running through their veins. Neither of them was completely
human.

Morgana herself did not know what she was till she met Merlin and he became her
teacher. Merlin had told her the secret of her past and instructed her in the
mystic arts of thaumaturgy, but he never suspected her true purpose. Her
boundless ambition and her lust for vengeance had consumed her and contaminated
everything she touched. She seduced her own half brother, Arthur, and gave birth
to Modred. Through him she had brought down Arthur's kingdom, but when it was
over, she had been left with nothing. She could take no satisfaction in the
bitter irony of Arthur being destroyed by his own son. The spoils of her
vengeance were denied her. There had been no kingdom she could rule through
Modred, because without Arthur, the kingdom fell apart and there was no Modred
to try to hold it all together.

With Arthur dead, the poison had gone out of Modred. He remembered Lucas and
Bedivere standing over him as he lay upon the battlefield, impaled on his
father's spear, and he heard Bedivere saying flatly, "He is done." Then they had
left him lying mere and went to help their king, but Arthur did not survive his
wounds. Modred had been certain that he would die of his as well. At that moment
he had longed for nothing quite so much as death, and yet his body lingered,
clinging stubbornly to life in a way that no merely human body ever could.

He remembered lying on the corpse-strewn field of battle, looking up at the
darkening sky as the ravens feasted all around him, his body flushed with agony,
tears of despair flooding his eyes. He grieved for the waste his life had been,
never suspecting how much life was still ahead of him. It was as if the hate
that fueled him all his life had spilled out with his blood, and now he was an
empty vessel, lying shattered and discarded on a field of broken dreams.

He had dragged himself away to heal and then had left England, to live first as
an itinerant bard, then as a thief, and finally, having no other marketable
skills, he became a mercenary. It was a line of work for which he was eminently
suited. He fought without passion or ideals and with no thought for principles
or morals. He knew only too well that even a knight like Lancelot could be
destroyed by passion, and a woman pure as Guinevere could betray her own ideals.
Modred had seen how easily principles could be perverted and morality
manipulated. He had known the self-righteous hypocrisy of Camelot, where might
made right and adultery was tolerated so long as the appearance of virtue could
be maintained. He wanted no part of chivalry or honor. He cared even less for
love and glory. The consuming emotions of his youth were banished utterly, to be
replaced by the ruthless pragmatism of a black knight errant ruled only by cold
logic.