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

own, replaced it on the inlaid table, and stood up. Roxburgh also rose to his feet.
"You are leaving so soon?"
"I will not squander more of your time, sirтАФYour Grace is a busy man, I know. Thank you for
sparing me a moment."
"But your tidings . . ."
"Will Your Grace take me to the King-Emperor?"
"Before you stands his sworn representative. Is that not enough?"
"No, sir."
She curtsied. Beyond the palace walls, out in the gulf of night, the wind raged, hammering at the
windows.
"Good speed," said Roxburgh, smiling slightly.
Rohain-Imrhien guessed he would not truly let her leave without divining her purpose.
She paused by the door, where two footmen of matching height stood poised to escort her. Then
she turned and looked over her shoulder. The war-leader stood with his feet apart, arms folded. He
nodded curtly. She walked back into the chamber.
Her bluff had not worked.
His had.
"I will tell you, sir," she said, since there was no option.
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 The wind sucked along corridors. It sang weird harmonies, flinging doors open and shut with sudden
violence and setting every hound in the Royal Kennels to howling.
A sleepy young footman went around the Duke of Roxburgh's audience-chamber, lowering the
gleaming lamps on their chains and trimming the wicks, lighting a score of candles slender and white like
young damsels, now yellow-haired. In the tall hearth, the flames had simmered down to a wary glow,
enlivened now and then by a sudden gust down the chimney. The hounds by the fire twitched, dreaming
perhaps of past hunts.
Rohain fell silent, her story told. Long before this night, before she had become Rohain, she had held
an inner debate on what she would say, should she ever reach Court. To reveal the existence and
whereabouts of the hidden treasure was her purpose, and to uncover the corrupt Scalzo and his
adherents so as to be avenged. But to disclose her own identityтАФinsofar as she knew itтАФwas not her
intention. In truth, she was nothing but a homeless waif who had forgotten a past that possibly was best
left forgotten. She was a foundling, an ex-floor-scrubber, a serf, a stowaway, a misfit, and an outcast.
Now a chance to begin afresh had fallen like a ripe plum into her lap. The lowly part of her life could be
swept away and hidden. With a new face and a new name, she who had first been nameless and then
been Imrhien might indeed become Rohain of high degree.
To begin living a lie did not sit comfortably with her, but so many reasons made it the choicest path.
A noblewoman could wield so much more influence than a servant. That power might be used to help her
friends. With influence, she had also some chance of finding Thorn again, of at least seeing him, from a
distance, one more time. Thirdly, having once tasted dignity and luxury, it would be hard to relinquish
them.
And so she had told her story to Roxburgh not as it was, but as she wished it to be heard. He had
listened closely throughout, and when she had finished had asked several pertinent questions. He was no
fool; she guessed that he perceived some flaws in the web she had woven, but, perhaps out of tact, he
chose to overlook them.
The story went that she had left the Sorrow Islands and begun a journey across Eldaraigne in a
small, private Windship. A storm had wrecked the craft over the Lofty Mountains. She and a
crewmember had been the only survivors of the disaster. Wandering destitute and in danger through the
wight-ridden forests, they had come accidentally upon a treasure hoard of unsurpassed magnificence, at a
place they named Waterstair.
"A treasure hoard? You say that it contains much sildron?"