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

older gods received their sacrifices, and the nine-fold lights still
burned unquenched by the open doorway.

All through the years when Arthur had been hidden, for his own safety,
with Count Ector in the Wild Forest, I had stayed near him, known only
as the keeper of the shrine, the hermit of the Chapel in the Green.

Here I had finally hidden the great sword of Maximus (whom the Welsh
called Macsen), until the boy should come of an age to lift it, and
with it drive the kingdom's enemies out and destroy them.

The Emperor Maximus himself had done so, a hundred years before, and
men thought of the great sword now as a talisman, a god-sent sword of
magic, to be wielded only for victory, and only by the man who had the
right.

I, Merlinus Ambrosius, kin to Macsen, had lifted it from its long
hiding-place in the earth, and had laid it aside tor the one to come
who would be greater than 1.

1 hid it first in a flooded cave below the forest lake, then, finally,
on the chapel altar, locked like carving in the stone, and shrouded
from common sight and touch in the cold white fire called by my art
from heaven.
From this unearthly blaze, to the wonder and terror of all present,
Arthur had raised the sword.

Afterwards, when the new King and his nobles and captains had gone from
the chapel, it could be seen that the wildfire of the new god had
scoured the place of all that had formerly been held sacred, leaving
only the altar, to be freshly decked for him alone.

I had long known that this god brooked no companions.

He was not mine, nor (I suspected) would he ever be Arthur's, but
throughout the sweet three corners of Britain he was moving, emptying
the ancient shrines, and changing the face of worship.

I had seen with awe, and with grief, how his fires had swept away the
signs of an older kind of holiness; but he had marked the Perilous
Chapel--and perhaps the sword--as his own, beyond denying.
So all through that day I worked to make the shrine clean again and fit
for its new tenant.

It took a long 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