"Fiona McIntosh - The Quickening - 01 - Myrren's Gift" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntosh Fiona)

Through a haze of pain Thirsk scrutinized the grieving man before him. noticing for the first time how gray
his King’s hair had become. Once lustrous, it framed a strong-looking face, a determined jaw. and eyes
that somehow reflected the man’s extraordinary intelligence. The King’s tall bearing suddenly gave the
impression of a vague stoop, as though his big body was getting too heavy for him to carry around. They
were getting old.

The General suddenly rasped a laugh. He would grow no older than this day. The King looked up
sharply at the unexpected sound and Fergys shrugged, sending a new wave of agony through his ruptured
body.

“We’ve always managed to laugh at most things. Magnus.”

“Not at this, Fergys. Not at this.” The King sighed again.

Fergys could hear the pain in that deep breath. They had shared their childhood. Their fathers had raised
them to be close but the friendship was not forced. Fergys had worshiped the heir and then the King, and
for his part, Magnus considered his General a brother in all but birthright. He loved Fergys fiercely and
relied on his counsel, had done so throughout his long and flourishing reign. They were as wise together
as they were wily.

“What must I do?” the King whispered.

With his last reserves of energy, the soldier squeezed the hand of his King.

“Your majesty, it is my belief that you would no more celebrate the death of King Valor of Briavel than
you do mine. Morgravia has nothing to fear from him now for perhaps as much as the next
decade—make it so, my King. Call a parley, sire. No more young men need lose their lives today.”

“I want to. I have no desire to prolong this battle, as you well know, and if it had not been for my own
stupidity, you wouldn’t—”

Thirsk interrupted the King’s outpouring of guilt with a spasm of coughing, blood spattering his shirt.
Death would no longer be patient. The King began to reach for linens but his General pushed the
monarch’s fussing hands away.

“My death should suffice—it will be seen as a major blow for Morgravia,” he said matter-of-factly
before adding. “Valor is proud but he is not stupid. He has no male heir. sire. His young Princess will be
Queen one day and will need an army of her own, and for Briavel to breed the soldiers of the future, they
need peace. But their men. and ours, would do well to dispense with the ancient quarrel altogether. The
threat from the north is very real, my King, for both our realms. You may need each other one day.”

Thirsk spoke of Cailech, the self-proclaimed King of the Mountain People. In the early days Cailech had
merely been the upstart and impossibly young leader of a rabble of hard Mountain Dwellers who rarely
left their high ground among the imposing sprawl of ranges that framed the far north and northeast. His
kind for centuries had kept their tribal squabbles to themselves, contained within the Razors, as the range
was called. Back then, fifteen or so years ago, this young warrior, no more than eighteen summers, had
begun to stamp a brutal authority across the tribes, uniting them. Thirsk had believed for several years
now that it was only a matter of time before Cailech would feel confident enough to look beyond the
mountains and out toward the fertile lands of Morgravia and Briavel.