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

burial."

"He is young," she said, "for such a charge."

I smiled. "But ready for it, and more than able. Believe me, it was like seeing a young falcon take to the
air, or a swan to the water. When I took leave of him, he had not slept for the better part of two nights,
and was in high heart and excellent health."

"I am glad of it."

She spoke formally, without expression, but I thought it better to qualify. "The death of his father came
as a shock and a grief, but as you will understand, Ygraine, it could not come very near his heart, and
there was much to be done that crowded out sorrow."

"I have not been so fortunate," she said, very low, and looked down at her hands.

I was silent, understanding. The passion that had driven Uther and this woman together, with a kingdom
at stake for it, had not burned out with the years. Uther had been a man who needed women as most
men need food and sleep, and when his kingly duties had taken him away from the Queen's bed, his own
was rarely empty; but when they were together he had never looked aside, nor given her cause for grief.
They had loved each other, King and Queen, in the old high way of love, which had outlasted youth and
health and the shifts of compromise and expediency which are the price of kingship. I had come to
believe that their son Arthur, deprived as he had been of royal status, and brought up in obscurity, had
fared better in his foster-home at Galava than he would have done at his father's court, where with both
King and Queen he would have come far behind the best.

She looked up at last, her face serene again. "I had your letter, and Arthur's, but there is so much more
that I want to hear. Tell me what happened at Luguvallium. When he left to ride north again Colgrim, I
knew he was not fit to do so. He swore he must take the field, even if he had to be carried in a litter.
Which, I understand, is what happened?"

For Ygraine, the "he" of Luguvallium was certainly not her son. What she wanted was the story of
Uther's last days, not the tale of Arthur's miraculous coming into his kingdom. I gave it to her.

"Yes. It was a great fight, and he fought it greatly. They carried him to the battlefield in a chair, and all
through the fighting his servants kept him there, in the very thick of the battle. I had Arthur brought down
from Galava at his orders, for him to be publicly acknowledged, but Colgrim attacked suddenly, and the
King had to take the field without making the proclamation. He kept Arthur near him, and when he saw
the boy's sword broken in the fight, threw him his own. I doubt if Arthur, in the heat of the battle, saw the
gesture for what it was, but everyone else did who was near. It was a great gesture, made by a great
man."

She did not speak, but her eyes rewarded me. Ygraine knew, none better, that Uther and I had never
loved one another. Praise from me was something quite other than the flattery of the court.

"And afterwards the King sat back in his chair and watched his son carry the fight through to the enemy,
and, untried as he was, bear his part in the rout of the Saxons. So later, when he presented the boy at last
to the nobles and the captains, his work was half done. They had seen the sword of kingship handed
over, and they had seen how worthily it had been used. But there was, in fact, some opposition..."