"Bujold, Lois McMaster - Chalion 3 - The Hallowed Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bujold Lois McMaster)

The Hallowed Hunt

LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD

CONTENTS
CHAPTERS

ONE THE PRINCE WAS DEAD. TWO THE CORTEGE, SUCH AS IT WAS, LUMBERED OUT THE CASTLEЕ THREE WHEN THEY ARRIVED BACK AT THE WAGON WAITING ON THEЕ FOUR THEY ESCAPED REEDMERE LATER IN THE MORNING THANЕ FIVE IJADAТS LAUGHTER WAS ABRUPTLY EXTINGUISHED. INGREY QUIETLYЕ SIX INGREY WOKE FEVERISH FROM DIMLY REMEMBERED NIGHTMARES. SEVEN AFTER FORAGING A MEAL OF SORTS IN HIS INNТS COMMONЕ EIGHT INGREY RETURNED UPSTAIRS TO PACK HIS SADDLEBAGS, THENЕ NINE THE SERVANTТS COT CREAKED IN THE NIGHT SILENCE OF THEЕ TEN THEY CRESTED THE RANGE OF LOW HILLS NORTHEAST OF THEЕ ELEVEN AS INGREY MADE HIS WAY UP THE CORRIDOR TOWARD THEЕ TWELVE INGREY DIDNТT HAVE TO POUND ON THE DOOR TO WAKE THEЕ THIRTEEN THE PORTER ADMITTED INGREY AGAIN TO THE HALL. INGREYТSЕ FOURTEEN THE TEMPLE SQUARE WAS ALREADY CROWDED WITH COURTLYЕ FIFTEEN APERFUNCTORY RAP SHIVERED THE PARLOR DOOR, AND ITЕ SIXTEEN IN THE WANING AFTERNOON LIGHT, INGREY MADE HIS WAYЕ SEVENTEEN HE WAS HALFWAY TO HETWARТS WHEN THE REACTION SET IN,Е EIGHTEEN IJADA WAS SITTING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRCASE AS THEЕ NINETEEN BY RELENTLESS PROWLING, INGREY FAMILIARIZED HIMSELFЕ TWENTY INGREY COULD NOT MUSTER MUCH SURPRISE WHEN, AFTERЕ TWENTY-ONE THE HALLOW KINGТS BEDCHAMBER WAS LESS CROWDED THANЕ TWENTY-TWO BY THE TIME THE MOON WAS HIGH, THE LATHERED HORSESЕ TWENTY-THREE THE SENTINEL LED OFF, LIMPING, USING HIS SPEAR AS AЕ TWENTY-FOUR HORSERIVER FELL BACK A PACE. HALF HIS FACES SEEMEDЕ EPILOGUE INGREY LEFT IJADAТS FOREST THAT AFTERNOON CLINGINGЕ

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CHAPTER ONE
T HE PRINCE WAS DEAD.
Since the king was not, no unseemly rejoicing dared show in the faces of the men atop the castle gate. Merely, Ingrey thought, a furtive relief. Even that was extinguished as they watched IngreyТs troop of riders clatter under the gateТs vaulting into the narrow courtyard. They recognized who he wasЧand, therefore, who must have sent him.
IngreyТs sweat grew clammy under his leather jerkin in the damp dullness of the autumn morning. The chill seemed cupped within the cobbled yard, funneled down by the whitewashed walls. The lightly armed courier bearing the news had raced from the princeТs hunting seat here at BoarТs Head Castle to the hallow kingТs hall at Easthome in just two days. Ingrey and his men, though more heavily equipped, had made the return journey in scarcely more time. As a castle groom scurried to take his horseТs bridle, Ingrey swung down and straightened his scabbard, fingers lingering only briefly on the reassuring coolness of his sword hilt.
The late Prince BolesoТs housemaster, Rider Ulkra, appeared around the keep from wherever heТd been lurking when IngreyТs troop had been spied climbing the road. Stout, usually stolid, he was breathless now with apprehension and hurry. He bowed. УLord Ingrey. Welcome. Will you take drink and meat?Ф
УIТve no need. See to these, though.Ф He gestured to the half dozen men who followed him. The troopТs lieutenant, Rider Gesca, gave him an acknowledging nod of thanks, and Ulkra delivered men and horses into the hands of the castle servants.
Ingrey followed Ulkra up the short flight of steps to the thick-planked main doors. УWhat have you done so far?Ф
Ulkra lowered his voice. УWaited for instructions.Ф Worry scored his face; the men in BolesoТs service were not long on initiative at the best of times. УWell, we moved the body into the cool. We could not leave it where it was. And we secured the prisoner.Ф
What sequence, for this unpleasant inspection? УIТll see the body first,Ф Ingrey decided.
УYes, my lord. This way. We cleared one of the butteries.Ф
They passed through the cluttered hall, the fire in its cavernous fieldstone fireplace allowed to burn low, the few red coals half-hidden in the ashes doing nothing to improve the discomfort of the chamber. A shaggy deerhound, gnawing a bone on the hearth, growled at them from the shadows. Down a staircase, through a kitchen where a cook and scullions fell silent and made themselves small as they passed, down again into a chilly chamber ill lit by two small windows high in the rocky walls.
The little room was presently unfurnished but for two trestles, the boards laid across them, and the sheeted shape that lay silently upon the boards. Reflexively, Ingrey signed himself, touching forehead, lip, navel, groin, and heart, spreading his hand over his heart: one theological point for each of the five gods. Daughter-Bastard-Mother-Father-Son. And where were all of You when this happened?
As Ingrey waited for his eyes to adjust to the shadows, Ulkra swallowed, and said, УThe hallow kingЧhow did he take the news?Ф
УIt is hard to say,Ф said Ingrey, with politic vagueness. УSealmaster Lord Hetwar sent me.Ф
УOf course.Ф
Ingrey could read little in the housemasterТs reaction, except the obvious, that Ulkra was glad to be handing responsibility for this on to someone else. Uneasily, Ulkra folded back the pale cloth covering his dead master. Ingrey frowned at the body.
Prince Boleso kin Stagthorne had been the youngest of the hallow kingТs survivingЧof the hallow kingТs sons, Ingrey corrected his thought in flight. Boleso was still a young man, for all he had come to his full growth and strength some years ago. Tall, muscular, he shared the long jaw of his family, masked with a short brown beard. The darker brown hair of his head was tangled now, and matted with blood. His booming energy was stilled; drained of it, his face lost its former fascination, and left Ingrey wondering how he had once been fooled into thinking it handsome. He moved forward, hands cradling the skull, probing the wound. Wounds. The shattered bone beneath the scalp gave beneath his thumbsТ pressure on either side of a pair of deep lacerations, blackened with dried gore.
УWhat weapon did this?Ф
УThe princeТs own war hammer. It was on the stand with his armor, in his bedchamber.Ф
УHow veryЕunexpected. To him as well.Ф Grimly, Ingrey considered the fates of princes. All his short life, according to Hetwar, Boleso had been alternately petted and neglected by parents and servants both, the natural arrogance of his blood tainted with a precarious hunger for honor, fame, reward. The arroganceЧor was it the anxiety?Чhad bloated of late to something overweening, desperately out of balance. And that which is out of balanceЕfalls.
The prince wore a short open robe of worked wool, lined with fur, blood-splashed. He must have been wearing it when heТd died. Nothing more. No other recent wounds marked his pale skin. When the housemaster said they had waited for instructions, Ingrey decided, he had understated the case. The princeТs retainers had evidently been so benumbed by the shocking event, they had not even dared wash or garb the corpse. Grime darkened the folds of BolesoТs bodyЕno, not grime. Ingrey ran a finger along a groove of chill flesh, and stared warily at the smear of color, dull blue and stamen yellow and, where they blended, a sickly green. Dye, paint, some colored powder? The dark fur of the inner robe, too, showed faint smears.
Ingrey straightened, and his eye fell on what he had at first taken for a bundle of furs laid along the far wall. He stepped closer and knelt.
It was a dead leopard. Leopardess, he amended, turning the beast partly over. The fur was fine and soft, fascinating beneath his hands. He traced the cold, curving ears, the stiff white whiskers, the pattern of dark whorls upon golden silk. He picked up one heavy paw, feeling the leathery pads, the thick ivory claws. The claws had been clipped. A red silk cord was bound tightly around the neck, biting deeply into the fur. Its end was cut off. IngreyТs hairs prickled, a reaction he quelled.
Ingrey glanced up. Ulkra, watching him, looked even more bleakly blank than before.
УThis is no creature of our woods. Where in the world did it come from?Ф
Ulkra cleared his throat. УThe prince obtained it from some Darthacan merchants. He proposed to start a menagerie here at the castle. Or possibly train it for hunting. He said.Ф