"Steve White - The Disinherited 02 - Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (White Steve)

anchoring here near Nantes. That the island of Britain had produced such
a swarm of seagoing craft had generated unspoken amazement. But they
all knew that the High King Riothamus had revived the old Saxon Shore
Fleet, as he was trying to revive so much else. Before long, a procession of
boats had started bringing ashore the carefully bred warhorses that had
carried Riothamus' famous cavalry galloping over Saxon and Pict,
fetlock-deep in barbarian blood.

Now now, let's not wax poetic, Sidonius chided himself.

I've written so many congratulatory poems—to poor old Avitus, and
then to Majorian a few months later, and now to Anthemius—that it's in
danger of becoming a joke. Besides, unlike them, Riothamus isn't
Emperor of the West. Yet.

Or is he something more?

Now, wherever did such a strange thought come from?

He grew aware of Faustus' drone. "Yes, my dear Sidonius, I am
certainly not getting any younger. My health, by God's mercy, continues to
be good, though my eyesight has deserted me to such an extent that
writing has become quite impossible, And I fear my joints will not soon let
me forget this damp chill today. I know full well that I cannot expect to
weather many more winters."

"Come, Excellency! You'll bury us all."

"No, I do not complain—especially if I depart leaving you as Bishop of
Clermont. For I know that you will be a voice for the true Catholic faith in
the councils of the Church in Gaul! Otherwise, I fear my soul would depart
burdened by the sin of despair. Everywhere, all around us, the Arian
heresy rises like a tide, threatening to drown us all in damnation with its
horrid, perverse doctrine that the Father and the Son are of like
substance, rather than the same substance, as every true Christian must
affirm…" Color mounted in Faustus' cheeks, and Sidonius knew there was
no stopping him now.

Faustus was bound to be a fire-eater on the subject of heretics, having
only last year been driven from his bishopric and sent scurrying to
Soissons by the Arian Visigoths. Earnest theologians all, Sidonius
reflected drily. No doubt they debated the nature of the Trinity while
stealing the candelabra. But Faustus' obsession dated back much further
than that—back to his youth on the misty island that had put forth the
fleet now filling the Loire estuary.

Old as Faustus was, it still came as a shock to realize that he had been
born just a couple of years after the day—the last day of 406, to be
exact—when the Suevi and Vandals and their rabble of allies had crossed
the frozen Rhine into a Gaul that had been stripped of troops by Stilicho