"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - The Spider Glass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

last as if the Huguenot influence explained matters.

“Ah, yes, Great-aunt Serena was quite a handful.” The host laughed quietly. “The last time I saw her—it
was years ago, of course—she was careering about the Cotswolds on both sides of her horse. The
whole countryside was scandalized. They barred her from the Hunt, naturally, which amused her a great
deal. She could outride most of them, anyway, and said that the sport was becoming tame.”

“Whittenfield…” the rotund man said warningly.

“Oh, yes, about the glass.” He sipped his port thoughtfully. “The glass comes from Serena’s family, the
English side. It’s an heirloom, of course. They say that the Huguenot who married into the family took the
woman because no one else would have her. Scandal again.” He paused to take wine, and drained his
glass before continuing. “The mirror is said to be Venetian, about three hundred and forty or fifty years
old. The frame was added later, and when Marsden appraised it he said he believed it to be Austrian
work.”

“Hungarian, actually,” murmured the sixth guest, though no one heard him speak.

“Yes… well.” Whittenfield judiciously filled his glass once more. “Really wonderful,” he breathed as he
savored the port.

“Charles, you should have been an actor—you’re wasted on the peerage,” Dominick said as he took a
seat near the fire.

“Oh, very well, I’ll get on with it,” Whittenfield said, capitulating. “I’ve told you the glass is Venetian and
something over three hundred years old. The latest date Marsden ventured was

1570, but that, as I say, is problematical. In any case, you may be certain that it was around in 1610,
which is the critical year so far as the story is concerned. Yes, 1610.“ He sank back in his chair, braced
his heels once more on the Tudor settle, and began, at last, in earnest.

“Doubtless you’re aware that Europe was a great deal more chaotic then than it is now—”

“That’s not saying much,” the rotund man interjected.

“Twilford, for God’s sake, don’t give him an excuse to digress again,” Dominick whispered furiously.

“As I was saying,” Charles went on, “Europe was doing very badly in 1610. That was the year Henri the
Fourth of France was assassinated and his nine-year-old son succeeded him, and you know how Louis
the Thirteenth turned out! James was making an ass of himself by prolonging Parliament and by locking
up Arabella Stuart for marrying William Seymour. One of the tsars was deposed, but I can never keep
them straight, and I believe a Prussian prince was offered the job—”

“Polish,” the sixth guest corrected him politely. “Vasili Shuisky was deposed in favor of Vladislav,
Sigismund Ill’s son.”

“Very likely,” Whittenfield agreed. “Spain and Holland were having a not-very-successful go at a truce.
The German Protestant states were being harried by their neighbors… That will give you some idea.
Well, it happened that my Great-aunt Serena’s nine times great-grandmother was living—”