"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 11 - The Fire Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

‘Ah. I see.’

Nevyn considered his answer. During the winter past, Maddyn, the bard
in question, had caught Oggyn out in some shameful doings and written a
flyting song about them It was his right as a bard to do so, but in his shame
Oggyn wouldn t be caring about rights and duties.

‘He is, truly.’ Nevyn decided that brevity was best. ‘I’ve never met a
man more aware of his station in life. If anything, he’s perhaps too modest
for a bard.

Oggyn set his lips together hard and stared for a moment more.

‘Ah well, Oggyn said at last. ‘None of my affair, anyway. Shall we go
up?’

‘By all means. We should find the prince and his brother there before
us.’

‘I shan’t be able to climb around like this much longer.’ Bellyra laid
both hands on her swollen belly. ‘But I couldn’t stand not knowing. I
wonder if there truly is a secret passage. Tell me, Maddo. Doesn’t that
mark look like it means a doorway of some kind?’

Maddyn held the fragment of mouldy parchment up to an arrow slit for
the sunlight. They we’re standing in a wedge-shaped chamber part way up
one of the half-brochs, which joined the central tower like petals round the
centre of a daisy. According to the piece of map, this chamber should have
had two doors, the one by which they’d entered and another directly
across. Yet the inward bulge of the stone wall opposite showed nothing.

‘It does,’ Maddyn said at last. ‘Perhaps the door’s been walled up.’

The princess’s pages, however, gave up less easily. The two boys
began poking at the mortar and pushing rather randomly on the stones. All
at once the wall groaned, or so it sounded, a long sigh of pain. The boys
yelped and jumped back.
 ‘So!’ Bellyra said. ‘I’ll wager we have a spy’s holaor suchlike here.
The royal council chamber, the one on the second floor of the main broch,
should be right near here.’

The pages set to again. Dark-haired and hazel-eyed, they were
Gwerbret Ammerwdd’s sons, and apparently they had inherited that great
lord’s stubbornness. They pushed, prodded, laid their backs against the
wall and shoved until, all at once, a section of wall swung inward with an
alarming collection of squeaks, groans, and rumbles.

‘Look, Your Highness!’ said Vertyc, the elder of the pair. ‘Here’s the
door!’