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

time; I was stiff from recent hurts, and from a night of sleepless vigil; besides, there are things that must be
performed decently and in order. But at length all was done, and when, shortly before sunset, the servant
of the shrine came back from the town, I took the horse he had brought, and rode down through the
quiet woods.


It was late when I came to the gates, but these were open, and no one challenged me as I rode in. The
place was still in a roar; the sky was alight with bonfires, the air throbbed with singing, and through the
smoke one could smell roasting meats and the reek of wine. Even the presence of the dead King, lying
there in the monastery church with his guards around him, could not put a bridle on men's tongues. The
times were too full of happening, the town too small: only the very old and the very young found sleep
that night.

I found none, certainly. It was well after midnight when my servant came in, and after him Ralf.

He ducked his head for the lintel — he was a tall young man — and waited till the door was shut,
regarding me with a look as wary as any he had ever given me in the past when he had been my page
and feared my powers.

"You're still up?"

"As you see." I was sitting in the high-backed chair beside the window. The servant had brought a
brazier, kindled against the chill of the September night. I had bathed, and looked to my hurts again, and
let the servant put me into a loose bedgown, before I sent him away and composed myself to rest. After
the climax of fire and pain and glory that had brought Arthur to the kingship, I, who had lived my life only
for that, felt the need for solitude and silence. Sleep would not come yet, but I sat, content and passive,
with my eyes on the brazier's idle glow.

Ralf, still armed and jewelled as I had seen him that morning at Arthur's side in the chapel, looked tired
and hollow-eyed himself, but he was young, and the night's climax was for him a new beginning, rather
than an end. He said abruptly: "You should be resting. I gather that you were attacked last night on the
way up to the chapel. How badly were you hurt?"

"Not mortally, though it feels bad enough! No, no, don't worry, it was bruises rather than wounds, and
I've seen to them. But I'm afraid I lamed your horse for you. I'm sorry about that."

"I've seen him. There's no real damage. It will take a week, no more. But you — you look exhausted,
Merlin. You should be given time to rest."

"And am I not to be?" As he hesitated, I lifted a brow at him. "Come, out with it. What don't you want
to say to me?"

The wary look broke into something like a grin. But his voice, suddenly formal, was quite expressionless,
the voice of the courtier who is not quite sure which way, as they say, the deer will run. "Prince Merlin,
the King has desired me to bid you to his apartments. He wants to see you as soon as it is convenient for
you." As he spoke his eye lingered on the door in the wall opposite the window. Until last night Arthur
had slept in that annexe of my chamber, and had come and gone at my bidding. Ralf caught my eye, and
the grin became real.
 "In other words, straight away," he said. "I'm sorry, Merlin, but that's the message as it came to me
through the chamberlain. They might have left it till morning. I was assuming you would be asleep."