"Ball, Margaret - Shadow Gate, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ball Margaret)
"Not now. I don't want you falling and knocking another such dent in the other side of your head," Berengar said easily. Beyond all else, he wanted to get Kieran out of that filthy hut, and both of them away from the villagers who'd left Maud and His foster son to face the Wild Hunt alone. If he didn't have Kieran's weight in his arms, he might not be able to resist the temptation to call down elf-fire on the village as he left; if it wouldn't have made a mockery of Kieran's sacrifice, he might test on these villagers just how much reality he could add to an elven illusion.
And the boy was no weight, besides; lighter and frailer than Berengar would have thought, and cold to the touch. Had he taken another wound that he wasn't speaking of? "You'll ride before me back to the keep," Berengar said. There Idaine, who had
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been his nurse and his father's, could try to warm the boy with her healing spells.
Kieran twisted in Berengar's arms. "No! The Stone maidens, my lord! Who's watching for the lady Sybille? If she comes through the Gate now, with nobody to guide her ..."
"Hush" As he stepped through the low door of the hut, Berengar saw the bright sparkle of Bishop Rotrou's gold-bordered riding cloak; the bishop's train had caught up with them. And of all mortal men, the bishop's Durandine clerk Hugh was surely the last whom Berengar would wish to get a hint of the elven quest for Sybille. The Durandines had a name for attracting the few mortal men who had any skill in magecraft; it was inconceivable, of course, that mortal spells could compare with elven powers, even weakened as the Elder Race was now, but still there was no need to have the Durandines alerted and possibly weaving counterspells.
"God's grace to you, my lord Berengar," Rotrou greeted him calmly, "and to your fosterling. I trust the boy is undamaged?"
"He took a hard knock on his hard head," Berengar replied, "but I think it is nothing that will not heal with rest and quiet. The girl, thoughЧ"
Rotrou's quick frown warned him not to go on. "Yes. The villagers tell wild tales. Doubtless the child fled into the forest when the brigands came."
"Brigands? Brigands?" Kieran was twisted half upright in Berengar's arms. "My lord, it was the Wild Hunt. I saw them with these eyes."
"The Wild Hunt has no power to do physical harm," Rotrou countered, "nor may Herluin ride abroad by daylight. He was bound to darkness before your father's father lived, childЧyes, even more than three elven life-spans ago! Now let us have no more of this talk, upsetting the village to no purpose."
"I know what I saw," Kieran muttered obstinately.
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Rotrou smiled and ruffled the boy's bright hair. "But do you know, young master, that if I believed your tale of the Wild Hunt, I would stand in danger of being arraigned for heresy? The Council of Clermont decided that the Wild Hunt was a peasant supersti-tion, the rite of binding performed on Herluin no more than a show to persuade the country people to give up their pagan sacrifices. And our best theologians have proved conclusively that demons have no power to harm good Christians in this life, save by tempting them to sin. A bishop of the Church must not seem to believe in what the Church has decreed nonexistent, must he? But to calm your fearsЧ" He turned to his clerk. "Brother Hugh, did you not reach the rank of exorcist in the minor orders before you joined the Durandines? I shall trust in you, then, to ward all here from this ghostly Hunt."
"I pray for mortals," Hugh said. "The eifling will have to take his own chances with his own kind."
Kieran smiled sweetly at Brother Hugh's thin, tense face. "If the Hunt takes me, little brother of Saint Durand, your council of churchmen may have to rethink their decrees. For the peasants say the Hunt wants only souls. What use do you think my soulless elfin body will be to them?"
"Enough, Kieran! The Hunt takes no one who is under my protection," said Berengar.
"Or mine." Rotrou stepped forward, holding up the heavy silver cross that he wore as a pectoral.
Kieran's smile was so sweet that it hurt Berengar to look upon his face. "You are too good to an eifling, my lord of the church. But I have seen the Hunt, and you have not. They have Maud now, and if they ride again I do not think that your pretty toys will stop them."
"Do not blaspheme," said Rotrou evenly. He inclined his head to Berengar. "It grows late, and we must be on our way to the Remigius. God keep your
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That night Berengar sat up over Kieran's bed, watching Idaine as she called a warm golden healing tight to flow between her wrinkled palms and bathe the cold wound on the boy's head. Three times the light washed over the edges of the wound, and each time when Idaine relaxed her efforts the flesh was torn and bruised as before. On the third attempt Kieran cried out incoherently and tried to twist away from the healing light. "It hurts, my lordЧit hurts me so!"
Idaine sighed and lowered her hands. The fierce concentration left her face, and for a moment she looked as old as any mortal woman feeling the weight of her years. "I know not what it is," she told Berengar. "Iron leaves a raw edge to the flesh like this, and iron-wounds resist our healcraft; but if he had been struck by an iron horseshoe, the wound should be hot to the touch, not cold like this. It is growing worse; when you brought him home, it was only the wound itself that felt cold, now it is the whole side of his head and his neck. And I know not why the healing light should pain him, except ..."
"Except?" Berengar prompted gently.
"Whatever made this wound," Idaine said reluctantly, "must be inimical to all life and growth and healing. And some of its essence must have passed into the wound itself, maybe even into the childЧ"
"No." Berengar gripped Idaine's wrist and turned her bodily away from the bed. "There is nothing wrong with KieranЧnothing but a blow on the head
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Чhe will recover in his own good time!" He paused, fighting for control. "You may leave us. I will watch by the boy's side until he is better."
Two miles from the village, in the Remigius monastery, others also kept vigil. Indifferent to day or night, the Durandines held a chapter meeting whenever there was business to discuss or news to impart. Tonight a single task consumed them.
"Tlie village of St-Remy must wait," their leader decreed. "We will offer the villagers shelter and succor in good time, should they fear another attack; but tonight is our chance to capture the lady Sybille. Tlie boy's words made it plain enough that he had been charged to watch at die Stonemaidens. And his foolish lord took the child home to tend his wounds, instead of returning to his guard duty! If she can be brought through tonight, my friends, we shall never have a better chance of taking her. Join with me now in sending our will to that weak fool in the other world. He has delayed long enoughЧhe shall bring her to us now, with no more excuses, or else she shall bring herself. They cannot both resist our will."
The bowl of white fluid over which the monks bent their heads quivered slightly and showed the world of the iron-demons again. In that world it was still early in the day, and the sight of the great metal demons that rushed about their narrow paths made several of the younger monks shudder and cross themselves in thanks that they had not been forced to live in such a terrible world. The image in the bowl shivered, almost dissolved; the leader of the Durandines bent a stern glance on the weaker novices and all returned to their whispered chant. Now the image steadied to show a single street, a house, an antechamber within that house and a thin, (air-haired girl speaking to a small black demon that perched on her shoulder.
CHAPTERFOUR
Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who, for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends. Let those who go not put off the journey....
ЧSpeech of Pope Urban before the First Crusade
"Yes, eight-thirty tonight. Ill be here at eight to open the house, but Dr. Templeton and her brother will be chairing the meeting. You can come? Good."
Lisa hung up the phone and made another neat,
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precise check mark against one of the names written in her unicorn notebook. Things were going well; only ten o'clock in the morning, Clifford Simmons hadn't shown up yet with his threats and his personal lawyer, and more than half the people she'd called had agreed to come to the emergency meeting that night. It would be an ill-assorted group; Judith had instructed her to contact anybody who might possibly be interested in keeping the New Age Center going. Everybody who'd ever taken a class at the center was on the list, together with the members of Miss Penelope's Thursday morning bridge group, the managers of Whole Foods and Grok Books, and the entire staff of the Friends of Jung Spiritual Development School on 43rd Street.
And she'd only worked her way halfway down the first column of names. Lisa sighed and reached for the telephone again, wishing she weren't so painfully shy. Normal people could telephone complete strangers and demand to break into their evening plans without blushing in embarrassment. Normal people didn't find their palms sweating and their temples throbbing with the effort of sounding cool and businesslike while making their demands. Normal people sat at their desks and did their jobs instead of hiding in die smoky darkness of Mahluli's bookshop and staring at the pictures in an old children's bookЧ
Lisa set down die telephone again, closed her eyes and took three slow, deep breaths, in and out, the way Ginevra had taught her when she first came to the Center for counseling. Stop thatl she commanded herself. You're doing fine. Really. You're doing just fine. Three more breaths; feel the breathing from .the chest, from the diaphragm, from the energy centers of your body. What else had Ginevra told her in those first confusing days? Don't worry about "nor-maf' people. Everybody has their own problems. The guy you're talking to is probably just as nervous
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as you are, honey, only you don't see it because you're too wrapped up in your own worries.
Lisa smiled and opened her eyes while continuing the deep, rhythmic breathing. Ginevra's wisdom was one part New Age theories to nine parts middle-aged Texas housewife, but she would never know that what people came to her for was just that salty common sense and not the magic she thought she worked with her crystals.
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