"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 02 - Darkspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

‘Well, don’t take all the blame upon yourself for that. It’s been many a lifetime now, and they’ve all
had a hand in tangling their own Wyrds. I take it they’re making a bigger mess of things in this life?’

‘True spoken. Brangwen - I mean Jill, curse it - is off on the roads with Rhodry.’

‘Whom, I take it, is the same soul who once was known ,as Lord Blaen of the Boar.’

‘Just that. Did I forget to tell you? My apologies, but ye gods, I grow so muddled as the years stretch
out. I wonder how the elves manage to keep their memories straight, I truly do.’

‘They have minds fit to do so. Our folk don’t.’ _,

‘Sometimes I wonder how long I’ll be able to go on.’

Caer’s image looked at him sharply with a concern no less deep for being so shrewd. Nevyn looked
away, up at the ancient trees, nodding gently in a world that knows no decay or change. At times he was
so weary that he wished he could turn into a tree like the sorcerers in the ancient legends, who at last
found peace by merging with the oaks they worshiped.

‘Now here,’ Caer said. ‘If ever you need my aid, it’s yours.’

‘My sincere thanks. I may take you up on that.’

‘Good. By the way, is there any chance you’ll come through Lughcarn before winter sets in? It’s
always good to see old friends in the flesh.’

‘So it is, but maybe next spring. I have to stay in Eldidd.’

‘More dark doings afoot?’

‘There’s not, at that. I’ve been invited to a wedding.’

At that time, Eldidd province was one of the more sparsely settled parts of Deverry, and in its western
reaches, towns were rare. The biggest was Dun Gwerbyn, which held some five hundred round thatched
houses, a couple of inns, and three temples inside, its high stone walls. On a hill in the center of town
stood the dun, or fort, of the tieryn. Another set of stone walls sheltered stables and barracks for the
tieryn’s warband of a hundred men, a collection of huts and storage sheds, and the broch complex itself,
a four-story round stone tower with two shorter towers attached at the sides.

On that particular morning, the open ward around the broch was a-bustle with servants, carrying
supplies to the cook-house or stacks of firewood to the hearths in the great hall, or rolling big barrels of
ale from the sheds to the broch. Near the iron-bound gates, other servants bowed low as they greeted
the arriving wedding guests. Cullyn of Cerrmor, captain of the tieryn’s warband, assembled his men out in
the ward and looked them over. For a change, they were all bathed, shaved, and presentable.

‘Well and good, lads,’ Cullyn said. ‘You don’t look bad for a pack of hounds. Now remember; every
lord and lady in the tierynrhyn is going to be here today. I don’t want any of you getting stinking drunk,
and I don’t want any fighting, either. This is a wedding, remember, and the lady deserves to have it be a
happy one after everything she’s been through.’