"Kurtz, Katherine - Heirs of Saint Camber 02 - King Javan's Year" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)
XXIII Deliver him that suffereth wrong from the hand of the oppressor; and be not faint-hearted when thou sittest in judgment. -Ecclesiasticus 4:9
XXIV I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked. -Ecclesiasticus 3:17
XXV And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul. . . -Job 21:25
XXVI Go not after thy lusts, but refrain thyself from thine appetites. -Ecclesiasticus 18:30
XXVII A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city. -Proverbs 18:19
XXVIII Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. -Psalms 102:8
XXIX How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? -Psalms 94:4
XXX But a sore trial shall come upon the mighty. -Wisdom of Solomon 6:8
XXXI For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief. -Proverbs 24:2
XXXII Let us condemn him with a shameful death. -Wisdom of Solomon 2:20
XXXIII Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me. -Psalms 88:8
XXXIV He shall direct his counsel and knowledge, and in his secrets shall he meditate. -Ecclesiasticus 39:7
XXXV He shall serve among great men, and appear before princes; he will travel through strange countries. -Ecclesiasticus 39:4
XXXVI Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled. -Hebrews 13:4
XXXVII Live joyfully with thy wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity ... for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. -Ecclesiastes 9:9
XXXVIII Now therefore perform the doing of it. -// Corinthians 8:11
XXXIX Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous, because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings. -Wisdom of Solomon 2:12
XL A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. -Proverbs 6:17
XLI And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the Lord. -Amos 1:15
XLII And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of them all. -Hosea 5:2
EPILOGUE OUR INHERITANCE IS TURNED UNTO STRANGERS, OUR HOUSES UNTO ALIENS. -LAMENTATIONS 5:2
APPENDIX I: INDEX OF CHARACTERS
APPENDIX II: INDEX OF PLACES
APPENDIX III: PARTIAL LINEAGE OF THE HALDANE KINGS
APPENDIX V: Partial Lineage of the MacRories
Prologue
For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
-I Corinthians 15:25
A little past dawn of a June morning already promising uncompromising heat, the dark-haired child whose job it was to check the pigeon roost clambered up the last few rungs of the ladder leading up from the room below and cautiously emerged on the tower’s flat roof, keeping low.
The old square stone tower set on this barren hillside was assumed by local folk to be derelict. Twisted shrubs the size of small trees grew from a gap partway up one side, and what remained of the crenellated battlements looked ready to tumble down at the first good storm. In fact, the tower provided cover for a variety of clandestine activities whose scope would have surprised and shocked most of the human folk who lived in this remote area.
Young Seanna MacGregor and the pigeons were a small part of one of those activities. Several dozen of the dark-striped grey birds ruffled and chuckled to themselves behind the roost’s restraining mesh of knotted cord as the sun’s white disk cleared the eastern horizon. Seanna squinted against its brightness and scooped back sweaty wisps of hair that had escaped from her dark braid. Not a breath of air was moving. Usually no birds came in during the night, but this morning two were sauntering along the edge of the tower’s parapet, striped necks bobbing back and forth as they pecked for grain and twittered and cooed to the other birds.
Trying to avoid any too-quick motion that might frighten them, the ten-year-old began creeping quietly toward the nearer of the two pigeons. Practiced little hands soon had the first bird captive against her chest, so that she could pull the curl of vellum out of the little wooden cylinder tied around the bird’s leg. Her dark eyes widened as she read the brief message, and after stuffing it in a pocket, she slipped the first bird into the cage with the others and went after the second.
The second message proved to be the same as the first-insurance, no doubt, to make certain that at least one of them reached its destination. Glancing over the tower’s parapet to the yard below, Seanna looked for and spotted her favorite brother over by the tumbledown stables, watching a groom lead out a big, rangy bay that looked out of place in such mean surroundings. Not bothering to put the second bird into the cage, she released it onto the parapet again and started back down the ladder, sniffling back tears.
Below in the yard, standing next to a bearded man in a farrier’s leather apron, the outlawed son of the outlawed Earl of Ebor turned a critical eye on the mare being trotted back and forth outside the stable. Jesse MacGregor was not a tall man, but his compact frame was muscled and hard. At twenty, he had been a warrior for almost half his life. Flecks of gold stirred in the depths of brown eyes that missed very little. The sun had bronzed his olive skin and put brassy lights in the brown hair tied back in a queue. Over a full-sleeved white shirt of gauzy linen, open at the collar, he wore riding leathers of a dusty cinnamon color, almost the same shade as the callused hand he raised to point at the mare’s front feet.
“Look there. Do you see it? She’s still favoring the near front.”
“Aye, she is,” the farrier agreed. “I’ll try weighting the shoe one more time, but we won’t have any hoof left to nail it to if we don’t get it right this time.”
“Well, do what you can,” Jesse replied. “Thanks, Ned.”
As the farrier took the mare from the groom and led her back into the barn, Jesse turned at movement from the direction of the tower and opened his arms to the slight, anxious form in boy’s attire who came hurtling across the yard to tackle him around the waist, dark braid flying.
“Hey, Seanna Madonna, light of my life, what’s wrong?” he asked as he realized she had been crying.
“Two birds this morning,” she said, raking a slightly grubby sleeve across her eyes. “They both had the same message. He’s dying, Jesse.”
Stiffening slightly, Jesse hugged her closer for a moment, stroking a comforting hand down the dark hair, then took the two slips of parchment and headed back across the yard to the tower and a succession of hidden passages leading downward.
The tower was a gateway to the last bastion of the outlawed Order of Saint Michael, though the Michaelines themselves were long gone as an order. Nearly two decades before, the underground sanctuary had served as headquarters for the Deryni Camber MacRorie and his associates, many of them human, who had ousted the Deryni King Imre of Festil and restored the human line of Prince Cinhil Haldane to the throne of Gwynedd. Since Cinhil’s death four years before, it again had become the hub for a combined human and Deryni resistance, this time led by Camber’s son Joram.
For King Cinhil’s eldest son and heir, not yet twelve when he came to his father’s throne, had never managed to shake off the influence of the powerful human lords who had been his regents during his minority. Legislation pushed forward in the very first year of young Alroy’s reign had revived old resentments of Deryni privilege and excesses by focusing them through the lens of religious conviction that Deryni and their magical powers were evil. It was that legacy which had forced Joram and Jesse and their colleagues underground and which drove them in their ongoing efforts to see the balance set straight.
“Two birds this morning,” Jesse said without preamble as he entered the underground library where Joram was working. The messages are identical-and not what we wanted to hear.”
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |