"Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 13 - Warlock's Last Ride" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

to defend himself against her. Gwen, seeing his despair and knowing how deeply her execution would
scar him, had examined the woman's mind in depth, seen the sweet child buried under all the
machinations, found the kernel of goodness that could be nourished into health, and in a marathon,
exhausting night of telepathic psychotherapy, had healed her well enough to let her see the world as it
really was, to cast off the false personality her tormentors had grafted onto her and, at last, discovered
the name given her as a baby—Allouette.

Gregory knew it would be a life's work helping her to develop her own true personality, but had
already made great strides—so great that she had finally been willing to wed him publicly, even side by
side with his brother and sister, instead of being forever content with the quiet, almost furtive, ceremony
performed by a monk in a tiny village.

Trying to put the thought aside as unworthy, Rod looked around at the assemblage gathered in the
cathedral, what he could see of it from the rear. The nobility of Gramarye filled the pews—with one
very notable absence. Sadness tugged at him.

Gwen noticed. "What sorrow?"

"That the whole family isn't here," Rod said. "Alain's uncle and cousin should be watching him
marry."

"Aye, but an attainted traitor cannot come nigh the Crown." The thought was the one shadow on a
glorious day.

Rod saw, and was sorry he'd brought up the issue. "Maybe the kids will be able to make peace even
if their parents can't, dear."

Gwen smiled at the thought, then turned all her attention toward the central doorway of the
cathedral, waiting for the brides.

Guards lined the central doorway and the path to it, as much to keep the common folk from
blocking the way as to protect the brides. The commoners clustered at the other two doorways, eager for
a sight of their future king and queen. Shafts of colored light filled the air above them, a shifting array of
colors from the stained glass windows along the sides of the nave and the great rose window above the
choir loft. The noblemen and their wives seemed to vie with one another for the glory and extravagance
of their costumes, shifting restlessly now and then, hungry for a sight of the brides.

So was Rod.

Anxiously, he scanned the three young men waiting eagerly and apprehensively at the stairs to the
altar, then turned to look back into the recesses of the foyer. "We shouldn't have left the girls to dress
themselves!"



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"They have three maids apiece to help them, husband," Gwen said sternly. "We brought them here,