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

it in latter days that I was the by-blow of some wizard, the truth is that my father was a harnessmaker in the palace stables, as was his father before him. This would have been my
work as well, had not fate decreed otherwise. My mother was a laundress, and my memories of her are scant, for she died in childbirth when I was five, taking her unbreathing babe
with her. Apparently, neither of my parents showed any evidence of arcane talent. My own didn’t evidence itself until I began crossing the threshold of manhood, and I was slow to
recognize it for what it was.

My father perished of wildfire fever when I was eleven years old, so I became apprenticed to my grandsire, irascible and half-blind, but still one of the most ingenious leather-
workers in the royal household. I had not a tenth of his artistic skill, but I labored dutifully at my trade, urged on by the occasional smack on the ear, one more among scores of
insignificant crafters in the stables, until an alert head groom took note of an odd thing.

Horses were uncommonly docile when I fitted them out in harness. Even the most fractious destrier gentled when I took him in hand, and before long I was the one called to saddle
up the huge, evil-tempered stallions trained to fight in tourneys with hooves and teeth, as well as the mettlesome coursers preferred by Prince Heritor Conrig and his high-spirited
young band of Heart Companions. My gift with horses was really a species of wild talent, the first to manifest itself.

The second talent to bloom was nearly the death of me.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20document...aar/Julian%20May%20-%20Boreal%20Moon%2001%20-%20Conqueror's%20Moon.html (9 of 243)20-2-2006 21:47:26
Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon


When Prince Conrig was an unbelted youth of nineteen, not knowing what else he was, and I was twelve, still working with leather but also filling in as an undergroom, I had
occasion to lead His Grace’s skittish horse to him before a hunt. He spoke to me kindly, and after looking him in the eye I dared to answer back with what I thought was an innocent
observation.

Horrified by what I told him so casually, the prince thought at first to have me killed. (And told this freely to me later, as he swore me to secrecy with a formidable oath.) But even
then I possessed a glib tongue and a winning manner, and after close questioning and deep thought, Conrig realized that I could be supremely useful to him in a singular way. So he
made me his fourth footman, in time dubbing me Snudge because of my artful sneakiness, and thus my later patrons also styled me.

My crabby grandsire, deprived of a useful dogsbody by my promotion to the royal household, predicted that nothing good would come of me aspiring beyond my God-given place.
He died a few months later, by which time I had completely forgotten his dire prophecy. Whether it was true or not I leave to the judgment of those who read this tale of mine.

I was Royal Intelligencer throughout most of my life. I fought and fled and skulked and snooped and committed red murder and magical mayhem in the service of King Conrig
Ironcrown and his three remarkable sons. I was condemned and reprieved by another of that family, who continues to rule peaceably enough in the wake of the Sovereignty’s
dissolution.

I was perhaps the most humble of their arcanely talented servants, but so insidious and necessary that I witnessed—and even secretly helped to bring about—many a regal triumph
and defeat. That was in times long past, four thousand leagues to the north, on an island where sorcery was once taken for granted and inhuman presences still share the world with
mankind.

Continental readers unfamiliar with my former home may appreciate a brief description of it, and they would also do well to consult a map as the story unfolds. Others may skip
directly to the first part of the tale, here following.

==========

High Blenholme, an island in the Boreal Sea, is a rugged, roughly oblong land-mass with a broad northwesterly extension. It is about four hundred leagues in width and measures
roughly six hundred leagues from north to south. Blenholme means “moon island” in the old Forailean tongue. At that northern latitude, a trick of the eye makes the heavenly orb
seem much larger than normal at certain times of the year, and so the moon enjoys a prominent place in local religion and folklore.

What with the wildness of the waters surrounding the island, the reefs and frowning precipices that guard its approaches, and the Salka, Green Men, Small Lights, and Beaconfolk
who haunted the place in prehistoric times, High Blenholme was shunned by Continental explorers and would-be settlers until the mighty invasion fleet of Bazekoy the Great sailed
into Cala Bay, and he himself planted his standard at the mouth of the River Brent. That portentous event marked Year 1 of the Blenholme Chronicle.