"Roger Taylor - Ibryen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taylor Roger)

look at the stars.’

Marris cleared his throat softly. ‘Fortunate that I wasn’t one of the Gevethen’s assassins,’ he said
sternly.

‘I stand rebuked,’ Ibryen replied good-naturedly. ‘Though I doubt they’ll take the trouble to send
assassins if they find us.’

‘Whenthey find us,’ Marris emphasized.

Ibryen reached out and laid his hands on the man’s shoulders. ‘I yield the field, old friend,’ he said with a
soft laugh. ‘I’m retreating – returning to my bed to regroup my scattered wits. Wake me at dawn if I
show any signs of licking my wounds too long.’

Marris bowed slightly. ‘Sleep well, Count. The camp and all about is quiet.’

As Marris turned to move away, Ibryen said hesitantly, ‘Have you felt anything . . . strange . . . in the
wind, these last few days?’

Marris paused, his head bent to one side as he searched for the Count’s face in the darkness while he
considered this odd question. Then he shrugged. ‘Only Spring, Count,’ he replied. ‘Good and bad, as
ever.’

Ibryen nodded. ‘Sun on our skins again, blood moving in our veins, but the passes clearing of snow and
the need for renewed vigilance. Winter’s not without its advantages.’

Marris gave a low grunt by way of confirmation. ‘Twenty years since they came, five years since their
treachery forced us to flee, and every year they come searching, stronger each time, and nearer finding
us. Soon they’ll come in the winter also.’

Ibryen frowned. Such comments from any other would have brought a crushing response, but Marris
was too close a friend for him to invoke such defences. Five years ago it had been Marris who rescued
him from the mayhem when the Gevethen’s followers had stormed their country home and murdered his
family. He was Ibryen’s most loyal and trusted adviser, as he had been to his father. Blunt and fearless in
his opinions, he was nevertheless enough of a realist to speak such words to his Count only when no
others could hear. And Ibryen too, was enough of a realist not to bluster in the face of them.

‘It’s constantly on my mind, old friend,’ he replied simply.

Marris bowed again and let the matter lie. ‘Catch what sleep you can for the rest of the night, Count,’ he
said. ‘And take care, the air’s deceptively chilly.’

Then, without waiting for a dismissal, he was gone. Ibryen stood for a moment staring into the darkness
after him before he turned and went back inside. He had not noticed how cold it was outside until the
warmth of the room folded around him. Briefly he toyed with the idea of returning to bed as he had said,
but decided against it. Marris’s unexpected arrival had completely scattered the strangely intense
concentration with which he had woken, but the memory of it lingered and, as he thought about it again,
so he became even less inclined to regard what he had felt as an idle fancy. Elusive and intangible it might
have been, but, whatever it was, there had been a hard, shimmering sharpness at its heart which declared
it to be both real and outside himself.