"Mary Stewart - The Arthurian Saga 03 - The Last Enchantment" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

journey, so I had asked for him by name. By my orders he had gone to the chapel with the bier, and I
doubted if I would see him before the funeral was over. Meantime, the Welshman, Lleu, unpacked my
boxes and bespoke hot water, and sent the more intelligent of the landlord's boys across to the
monastery with a message from me to be delivered to the Queen on her arrival. In it I bade her welcome,
and offered to wait on her as soon as she should be rested enough to send for me. News of the
happenings in Luguvallium she had had already; now I added merely that Arthur was not yet in
Amesbury, but was expected in time for the burial.

I was not in Amesbury when her party arrived. I rode out to the Giants' Dance to see that all was ready
for the ceremony, to be told on my return that the Queen and her escort had arrived shortly after noon,
and that Ygraine with her ladies was settled into the Abbot's house. Her summons to me came just as
afternoon dimmed into evening.

The sun had gone down in a clouded sky, and when, refusing the offer of an escort, I walked the short
distance to the monastery, it was already almost dark. The night was heavy as a pall, a mourning sky,
where no stars shone. I remembered the great king-star that had blazed for Ambrosius' death, and my
thoughts went again to the King who lay nearby in the chapel, with monks for mourners, and the guards
like statues beside the bier. And Ulfin, who, alone of all those who saw him die, had wept for him.

A chamberlain met me at the monastery gate. Not the monks' porter; this was one of the Queen's own
servants, a royal chamberlain I recognized fromCornwall . He knew who I was, of course, and bowed
very low, but I could see that he did not recall our last meeting. It was the same man, grown greyer and
more bent, who had admitted me to the Queen's presence some three months before Arthur's birth, when
she had promised to confide the child to my care. I had been disguised then, for fear of Uther's enmity,
and it was plain that the chamberlain did not recognize, in the tall prince at the gate, the humble bearded
"doctor" who had called to consult with the Queen.

He led me across the weedy courtyard toward the big thatched building where the Queen was lodged.
Cressets burned outside the door and here and there along the wall, so that the poverty of the place
showed starkly. After the wet summer weeds had sprouted freely among the cobbles, and the corners of
the yard were waist-high in nettles. Among these the wooden ploughs and mattocks of the working
brothers stood, wrapped in sacking. Near one doorway was an anvil, and on a nail driven into the jamb
hung a line of horse-shoes. A litter of thin black piglings tumbled, squealing, out of our way, and were
called by a sow's anxious grunting through the broken planks of a half-door. The holy men and women of
Amesbury were simple folk. I wondered how the Queen was faring.

I need not have feared for her. Ygraine had always been a lady who knew her own mind, and since her
marriage to Uther she had kept a most queenly state, urged to this, possibly, by the very irregularity of
that marriage. I remembered the Abbot's house as a humble dwelling, clean and dry, but boasting no
comfort. Now in a few short hours the Queen's people had seen to it that it was luxurious. The walls, of
undressed stone, had been hidden by hangings of scarlet and green and peacock blue, and one beautiful
Eastern carpet that I had brought for her fromByzantium . The wooden floor was scrubbed white, and
the benches that stood along the walls were piled with furs and cushions. A great fire of logs burned on
the hearth. To one side of this was set a tall chair of gilded wood, cushioned in embroidered wool, with a
footstool fringed with gold. Across from this stood another chair with a high back, and arms carved with
dragons' heads. The lamp was a five-headed dragon in bronze. The door to the Abbot's austere sleeping
chamber stood open, and beyond it I caught a glimpse of a bed hung with blue, and the sheen of a silver
fringe. Three or four women — two of them no more than girls — were busying themselves in the
bedchamber and over the table, which, at the end of the room away from the fire, stood ready for
supper. Pages dressed in blue ran with dishes and flagons. Three white greyhounds lay as near to the fire