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

"Good night, then, Bedwyr."

But as I moved to pass him he prevented me. He bent quickly and took my hand, then snatched it to him
and kissed it. "I should have known you would see that it all came right. I was afraid, for a few minutes
there in the hall, whenLot and his jackals started that treacherous fracas —"

"Hush," I said. He had spoken softly, but there were ears to hear. "That's over for the present. Leave it.
And go straight to your father in the west tower. Do you understand?"

The dark eyes glimmered. "King Lot lodges, they tell me, in the eastern one?"

"Exactly."

"Don't worry. I've already had the same warning from Emrys. Good night, Merlin."

"Good night, and a peaceful sleep to us all. We need it."

He grinned, sketched a half-salute, and went. I nodded to the waiting servant and went in. The door shut
behind me.

The royal rooms had been cleared of the apparatus of sickness, and the great bed stripped of its crimson
covers. The floor tiles were freshly scoured and polished, and over the bed lay new unbleached sheets,
and a rug of wolfskins. The chair with the red cushion and the dragon worked on the back in gold stood
there still, with its footstool and the tall tripod lamp beside it. The windows were open to the cool
September night, and the air from them sent the lamp-flames sideways and made strange shadows on the
painted walls.

Arthur was alone. He was over by a window, one knee on a stool that stood there, his elbows on the
sill. The window gave, not on the town, but on the strip of garden that edged the river. He gazed out into
the dark, and I thought I could see him drinking, as from another river, deep draughts of the fresh and
moving air. His hair was damp, as if he had just washed, but he was still in the clothes he had worn for
the day's ceremonies; white and silver, with a belt of Welsh gold set with turquoises and buckled with
enamel-work. He had taken off his sword-belt, and the great sword Caliburn hung in its sheath on the
wall beyond the bed. The lamplight smouldered in the jewels of the hilt; emerald, topaz, sapphire. It
flashed, too, from the ring on the boy's hand; Uther's ring carved with the Dragon crest.

He heard me, and turned. He looked rarefied and light, as if the winds of the day had blown through him
and left him weightless. His skin had the stretched pallor of exhaustion, but his eyes were brilliant and
alive. About him, already there and unmistakable, was the mystery that falls like a mantle on a king. It
was in his high look, and the turn of his head. Never again would "Emrys" be able to lurk in shadow. I
wondered afresh how through all those hidden years we had kept him safe and secret among lesser men.

"You wanted me," I said.

"I've wanted you all day. You promised to be near me while I went through this business of hatching into
a king. Where were you?"

"Within call, if not within reach. I was at the shrine — the chapel — till almost sunset. I thought you'd be
busy."