"Cecilia Dart-Thornton - The Bitterbynde 02 - The Lady of the Sorrows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

Yet the new Rohain could not enjoy the comforts of this unaccustomed mode of travel. She
fervently hoped that all she had heard about the Court had been exaggeratedтАФthe tales of the refined
manners, the complicated rules of etiquette, the forms of speech. Between the fear that the carriage
would be overtaken by her enemies, the dread of what was to come, and constant battles with the
unwieldy headdress that threatened to slide off, she made the journey in great discomfort and alarm.
Throughout the Winter's day, the carriage rolled on.
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Days were short. At its zenith, the sun had risen only marginally above the horizon, where it
glowered from behind a dreary blanket of cloud.
Emerging from the woods, the Road ran through farming lands patched with fields, hedge-bordered.
Here and there, a house topped with smoking chimneys nestled among its outbuildings. After passing
through a couple of outlying villages, the Road began to climb toward the city walls.
The buildings of Caermelor clustered on the slopes of a wall-encircled hill that rose four hundred
feet out of the sea at the end of its own peninsula. To the south, the sea had taken a deep bite out of the
land to form a wide and pleasant bay fringed with white sands. The far side of this bay was cradled in the
arm of a mountainous ridge reaching out into the ocean to form a second, more rugged peninsula, its
steep sides clothed in forest.
Eastward, an expansive, flat-bottomed valley opened out. Through the middle of it ran the river that
drained the encircling hills, flowing until it reached the sea to the north of the city-hill. There, salt tide
danced to and fro with fresh current. In the estuary, waters ran deep enough for the draft of the
great-keeled Seaships. Wharves, piers, docks, and jetties jutted from the northern flank of the city-hill,
stalking into the water on thick, encrusted legs.
Atop the highest point, the palace overlooked allтАФthe vast sweep of ocean to the west, the curve of
the bay with its long lines of lace-edged waves, the blue-folded shoulders of the ridge dropping sharply to
the water; north, the ocean stretching to distant mountains; northeast, the river-port teeming with
business, forested with tall masts. Eastward, the city spread out over the plain, dwindling to scattered
farms and the backdrop of Doundelding's hills on the horizon.
But blind ocean was not all that could be seen to the west, for a tall island rose up, perhaps a
quarter of a mile offshore, directly opposite the city-hill. At low tide, the waters drained from a causeway
that connected it to the mainland. At all other times it was completely cut off by water. Here stood the
Old Castle, much like a crag itself, jagged, gray, and gaunt. Of yore it had been the fortress to which
citizens had retreated in times of war. Now it stood, stern sentinel, silent guardian, facing the palace on
the hill.
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Late in the afternoon the coach halted at last before the city gates. There was a knock on the front
wall of the compartment. Imrhien-Rohain slid back the little window that opened onto the coachman's
box. His eyes appeared, goggling like a fish's.
"Where to now, m'lady?"
"To the palace." Her new voice had crisped to a clear, ringing tone.
"Very well, m'lady."
She slid the window shut, like a guillotine chopping off the outside world.
Guards lounging under the portals had a word with her coachman. Through the windows they eyed
the passenger with curiosity as the vehicle went by. Imrhien-Rohain drew the curtains against their
intrusion. Beyond, voices rose and fell, wheels rattled, seagulls mewed. Children yelled. In booming tones
a town crier shouted, "Hear ye! Hear ye!"
She had come at last to Caermelor.


2
CAERMELOR, PART I