"Daley,.Brian.-.Coramonde.1.-.Doomfarers.Of.Coramonde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daley Brian)

Earthfast's formal gardens were extensive and elaborate, and so it
took Queen Fania's personal guardsmen some time to find Prince
Springbuck as he brooded near an orchid bower on an out-of-the-
way path. He passed his time resisting despair, for he now lived
under a death sentence of sorts.

Not particularly noteworthy to see, he was slightly under average
height; at nineteen, he hadn't yet come into his full growth. He was
an open-faced young man with straight, dark hair, some of his late
mother's swarthlness of skin, and eyes a light brown like that of his
dead father Surehand. He kept his sparse facial hair self-
consciously clean shaven and had no scar or other feature, as yet,
to set him apart in a crowd.

Sollerets rang across marble and two soldiers, a captain and a
ranker wearing gilt corselets of the Household, came to him there.
The Prince resigned himself to a mandate to appear in his
stepmother's Court,

There was a modest bow and a barely concealed command to
accompany them. He did so with a sinking feeling, and some true
premonition told him that blood would soon be let. That this was to
happen was no fault of the Prince's, though it stood as high
probability that the blood in question would be his own.

4 THE DOOMFARERS OF CORAMONDE

When Springbuck's father, Surehand, had died, he'd made no
clear provision as to his chosen heirЧwho should, by custom,
have been Springbuck. The old Suzerain's second wife meant to
see her son on the throne and had garnered a good deal of
support. There'd been dispute, argument and, in the end, a
decision that the matter must be settled in combat.

Events had coalesced in such short order that Springbuck, a good-
natured unaggressive young man, found himself under a tacit
house arrest, slated to measure swords with his half brother
Strongblade. It was disheartening enough that the ferocious
Strongblade, at seventeen, was the bigger of the two and more
accomplished in arms. But Springbuck was not so naive as to think
that his stepmother and her adherents would leave this critical
issue to chance. After all, the writ of the Protector Suzerain of
Coramonde ran for the entire eastern half of the Crescent Lands,
that tremendous sweep of lands which arcs around the Central
Sea.

Even Springbuck's last-ditch offer to abjure his royal heritage
without trial was rebuffed with a cold reminder that it was his duty to
put the affair squarely hi the laps of the gods.