"Scott Mackay - The Sages Of Cassiopeia2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mackay Scott)

Much to Tycho's surprise, Magnus darted away from the horse. The boys stood
there with terror in their eyes. Magnus grabbed two of the biggest, dragged
them
kicking and screaming to the embankment wall, and, using his ox-like strength,
pitched them into the canal. The others scattered like wheat chaff in the wind
while the two wet culprits sputtered for breath and pulled themselves up onto
the muddy bank. Magnus turned to Tycho.

"A chilly immersion for these we'er-do-well knaves," he said, laughing.

"For all the cripples they've stoned and all the idiots they've scoffed."

"Dear brother, are you truly Magnus ?"

"Of Herritzvad Abbey, the simple sibling of the great Tycho. My beloved Tyge,
who knows the secret clockwork of the stars."

"Yes, but not as simple as before. The Holy Father has blessed me, Magnus.
I've
found a new star, and I've found a new brother."

They walked past the village common, where the grass had turned brown and the
hoar-frost bearded the brambles in the far thicket. Magnus strode along beside
the horse, a new man, refashioned into the brother Tycho had never had, his
eyes
quick, full of purpose, his face rosy in the morning cold. Off to see the
widow
Huitfeldt, because she, too, had been blessed by this miracle. Tycho had to
see
it for himself, had to know that the widow Huitfeldt's idiot son Peder had
been
touched by the same hand of reason. Tycho had to see it because if the light
of
intelligence had finally come to Peder Huitfeldt, then Tycho could embrace,
without secret doubt, the miraculous transformation of his brother.

"Then it is not Venus, Tyge?" asked Magnus.

And yet was this intelligence, to pick up the strain of a conversation days
old,
with no proper reference, to dive right in and expect the listener to follow?

"No, Magnus, not Venus. Venus roams across the sky and this new star is fixed.
What we see each night in the constellation of Cassiopeia is not only a new
star, but a new kind of star."

"But why doesn't this star move like Venus, Mars, or Jupiter? Why must it be
shackled to the sky like a prisoner, and not free to roam like its brothers
and