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

quick to prevent embarrassment when he could, he had claimed the right of escort as her liege lord.

Quickly Rod faced front again, trying to give some reassurance of his own by his mere presence.
Cordelia walked with head erect, with pride, but he could feel her hesitance.

Then the young men stepped out to the center of the sanctuary, and Cordelia almost stopped,
staring at Alain's magnificence. Rod gave the lad a glance, saw his eyes wide in amazement at the most
beautiful sight of his life, and with a covert smile urged his daughter forward. Up the steps they went, up
to Alain, who proffered his arm with a look that said he wasn't worthy.

Privately, Rod agreed, of course—no man could be good enough for Cordelia. But he knew she was
really in love with the prince and had decided not to hold his royal blood against him. Not without
reservations of his own, Rod let her walk from his arm and Gwen's, to take Alain's. He stood beside his
wife for a moment, drinking in the sight of bride and groom, then held out his arm to Gwen. She laid
hers on top of his and turned with him to walk back down the steps to the pew that awaited them. As
they entered, she exchanged a tremulous smile with Queen Catharine across the aisle. For a moment,
their eyes held, old friends in league again, and Rod would never have believed the dozen confrontations
the two women had had, over the details of the wedding, Gwen politely and tactfully holding firm for
Cordelia's choices through every one of Catharine's tantrums.

Then Toby stepped up beside Geoffrey, and Quicksilver's mother joined them in the pew as Tuan
took his place beside Catharine in the lesser gilded chair. They turned back to the sanctuary, where the
archbishop was coming down from the high altar, resplendent in gold and white of his own—a gilded
chausable over a snowy alb, his high-peaked mitre also gilded, so that Rod wondered how the man could
hold up his head with all that weight. Maybe he was really leaning on the elaborate crozier, the very
ornate shepherd's crook that is a bishop's staff of office. The three couples drew up before him, Cordelia
and Alain in the center, Gregory beside Allouette at their left, fairly oozing reassurance, and at the right,
Geoffrey offering his arm to Quicksilver, who took it but returned a challenging glance. Her reply was a
look of adoration, and she whipped her gaze back to the archbishop, almost totally unnerved.

Gwen was murmuring to Quicksilver's mother, hand in hand, projecting reassurance of her own.
Rod exchanged a glance with Tuan; as one, both smiled, then turned back to the altar.

The archbishop intoned the old words in a voice that carried through the cathedral. Rod had offered
a tiny microphone and public-address system, but the prelate had refused them. Somehow the words
blurred in Rod's mind—he could tell only that the archbishop shifted from English to Latin and back—
and felt a sudden aching wish that he could have given Gwen a wedding like this. Unfortunately, he had
been a wanted man at the time, scarcely daring to show his face in a village church, let alone the
cathedral of the royal capital. He squeezed her arm, gazing at her with apology—but she gave him a
look that was almost merry, and he knew that she regretted nothing. She might have been married by a

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wandering monk instead of an archbishop, but she'd had a flower-filled glade instead of a cathedral and
a crowd of elves instead of nobility. Her dress had been stitched by a score of elf-wives and had
outshone even her daughter's royal gown, and the King of Elves had given her away.

Rod wondered if, in spite of all his precautions, she had guessed that Brom O'Berin was her father.