"Julian May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

“You must not even hint at such a thing, Gossy,” Conrig chided him. “If we gain at last what we have sought for so long, it will be because of her help.”

Vra-Stergos only shook his head, not daring to say more for fear of offending his brother by casting aspersions upon the co-author of the great new scheme. The accursed woman
might even be listening from a far distance as well as watching! Such a feat was alleged to be impossible, but who could tell with Mosslanders? The devilspawn were said to be part
Salka, and might very well share the monsters’ inhumanly strong talent.

“Everything is ready for the meeting,” Conrig said. “I have the wafers secure in my purse, and no one has meddled with the wine.”

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20document...aar/Julian%20May%20-%20Boreal%20Moon%2001%20-%20Conqueror's%20Moon.html (13 of 243)20-2-2006 21:47:26
Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

Stergos’s eyes flickered. “Is there no way I can dissuade you from using them?”

“I respect your misgivings, but you know there was no alternative. Go now and wait with our Heart Companions in the tower. I’ll join you as soon as the council is over and tell you
everything. Take the hidden stairs.”

“May Saint Zeth guide you.” Stergos touched the golden gammadion amulet of his order hanging at his breast and returned to the inner chamber.

Conrig waited for several minutes and then followed. The latch that opened the concealed passageway was in the curtain wall next to the necessarium, beneath a stone shelf holding a
lavabo, a crock of scented softsoap, and fine linen handtowels. He pressed a knob and a low doorway swung open. After listening for footfalls and hearing none, the prince ducked
inside and closed the door behind him. Much of the castle and its six great towers could be stealthily accessed via these ‘tween-wall passages and cramped spiral stairways. The
things were full of cobwebs and dead insects and rat turds, poorly lit by the occasional inward-looking peephole or narrow slits or oillets in the exterior masonry. Only the duke’s
family and their most trusted retainers knew of the secret warren’s existence. Conrig and Stergos and their poor simple brother Tancoron and their sisters Therise and Milyna had
used the passages as a playground when they were children visiting their godfather’s castle.

The prince went quickly to the musicians’ gallery above the great hall, thinking to watch the diners at the high table without notice and perhaps discover something of their mood.
The small balcony was empty and deeply shadowed at the rear, with only a few discarded pages of music lying on the floor among the benches. There would be no entertainment for
the duke’s guests this evening and no dawdling over the meal. Conrig crouched behind a balustrade with upright members carved fancifully into Green Men and other rustic demons
and studied the scene below.

Cresset-lamps and candles had been lit, but the lowering sun still shone through tall narrow windows, casting bars of red-gold light across the sixteen people sitting on the dais. The
conversation was low-pitched, even along the sideboards where the knights and retainers ate, with only an occasional burst of nervous laughter from the younger ones.

Following the prince’s instructions, Duke Tanaby had summoned the council attendees to table early, saying there would be only simple fare, and cautioning them against heavy
drinking that might cloud their brains when such would be sorely needed later. Most of the high lords and great barons, Conrig noted with approval, were following Tanaby’s
example of sobriety and drinking water from the castle’s renowned mineral spring—although Parlian Beorbrook, who was Earl Marshal of the Realm, and his lone surviving son
Count Olvan loudly demanded refills of their bumpers of mead. Not even Vanguard dared deny them.

Numbers of the noble guests seemed to savor their meal as little as the Prince Heritor himself had done. Old Baron Toborgil Silverside had scarce touched the slices of meat on his
silver trencher-plate, and the hovering pages found few takers for the steaming tureen of carp in nettle broth and the bowls of garnished frumenty and platters of apple and cherry
tarts that were the final courses.

Neither Duchess Monda nor any other of Castle Vanguard’s ladies were present. The only woman there—and her seated at the duke’s right hand, by Bazekoy’s Blazing Bones!—was
the redoubtable Baroness Zeandrise, the Virago of Marley. She was still clad in her stained green doeskin riding habit with a divided skirt, and wore no veil and no head ornament
but a glittering jeweled pick nearly the size of a dagger, transfixing her coil of frowsy grey hair.

Conrig knew that the baroness had only ridden into Vanguard at the last moment, when he and Tanaby had nearly despaired of her arrival. Her manner at table was taciturn and
forbidding in spite of the duke’s best efforts at hospitality. The prince had debated long with himself before including the Virago among those invited; but his godfather told him to
swallow his southern prejudice against a belted female, reminding him that warriors of her sex were far from uncommon among the Didionite barbarians. And besides, Zeandrise
Marley commanded fifteen knights and nearly a hundred mounted thanes…