"Dart-Thornton,.Cecilia.-.Bitterbynde.02.-.Lady.Of.The.Sorrows.V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

Laying eyes on the preternatural ship, Captain Tide said, "Now I have seen the fairest ship in Aia." He wandered long on her decks and vowed that one day he would take her into the sky.
"All this is of Faъran make," said Ercildoune in amazement. "I trow it's lain here for many lives of kingsЧsince the Fair Ones went under the hills. The door runes have kept their secret for a long time."
"How did you open the doors?" asked Heath.
"The password was plain to discover, for those who have studied the Faъran tongue, as I have. Written on these walls is a riddle. Loosely translated, it reads:
ЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧ
In my silent raiment I tread the ground, but if my dwelling is disturbed,
At whiles I rise up over the houses of heroes; my trappings lift me high,
And then far and wide on the strength of the skies my ornaments carry me over kingdoms,
Resounding loudly and singing melodiously; bright song.
Wayfaring spirit, when I am not resting on water or ground.
ЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧ
"The answer? A swanЧeunalainn, as the Faъran would say. That word is the key."
ЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧ
Now that her work had been completed by guiding the King-Emperor's men to the hidden cache, Rohain was able to withdraw to the sidelines. In the bitter chill of the morning, the captured eastsiders were brought in chains to the hold of the Windship. Sir Heath and his Dainnan took over with energetic efficiency, thoroughly exploring Waterstair's cavities and cliffs, leaving nothing undisturbed, loading objects onto the Windship under the direction of the Bard, with the use of sildron hoisters and floating transport platforms.
"Behold," Ercildoune pointed out to Rohain, "no war-harness exists here. All these most wondrous armors are intended for ceremonial purposes only. The Faъran had no need of bodily protection in battle. They loved it for decoration but their fighting skills precluded the need for body-shields. Also, while the Faъran could be diminished, they could never be destroyed."
Among the booty was a set of throne-like chairs, each adorned with carvings of flowers: marigolds of topaz and crocodilite, roses of pink quartz, hyacinths of lapis lazuli, their leaves cut from chryso-prase, olivine, jade. With a spasm of pain, Rohain watched the poppy and lily chairs being loaded aboard. Visions from memory sprang to mind.
Settling himself back in the poppy throne, Sianadh took up a brimming cup, sampled it with a satisfied air, and watched the girl over the rim of it. She repeated every sign, almost to perfection.
"Ye left the fat out of the pig part."
Having corrected this he went to check on the helm of fruit juice, which, optimistically, he was trying to coax to ferment into something stronger. The girl idly flipped gold coins in the sunlight; they winked light and dark as they spun.
"This brow ought never to be plowed with sorrow," quoted Ercildoune as he drew Rohain aside, leaving Viviana alone to admire each new piece being hoisted on deck. They stood beneath the lichened arches of a melancholy willow that wept green tears at the water's edge, "I grieve for departed friends," said Rohain, to explain her frown.
"Who does not? Yet such grief is merely selfishness. Hearken, Lady of the Sorrows, and be no longer of them. What we have uncovered here is as you promised, and more. This is a wealth of vast import. It might have been whittled away at the edges, pilfered by petty thieves over time, but you have rescued the greater part of it for its rightful owner. You have done the King-Emperor a great service and therefore you shall be appropriately rewarded. An it please the King-Emperor, you shall receive honors. I myself shall nominate you for a peerage in your own right. Lands and more shall be bestowed upon you, I'll warrant."
"I have only done my duty."
"Do not underestimate your deed. By nightfall, this lusty little bird of a frigate shall be loaded to her ailerons and ready to lumber through the sky like an overfed duck. Then we shall to Caermelor go in haste, leaving a goodly company of Dainnan behind to protect the King's interests. We shall arrive in triumph and in good time to make ready for the New Year's celebrations! Now, if that does not make your smile blossom, then you are not the sweet-tempered wench I took you for!"
His jollity being infectious, she smiled.
"Ha!" The Bard laughed, flinging his cap in the air. "All is well! I feel a song coming on!"

3
CAERMELOR, PART II
Story and Sentence


As warmer seasons wear away and nights begin to lengthen,
The power of the eldritch ones shall waken, wax, and strengthen.
Blithe heat and honest, artless light from all the lands shall wane,
Shadows shall veil what once was clear. Unpleasant things shall reign,
And mortal folk should all beware, who brave the longest night,
Of wickedness and trickednessЧof fell, unseelie wight.
ЧFOLK-CHANT

The Dainnan patrol frigate returned to Caermelor with its cargo on the evening of the twenty-first of Nethilmis, having waited twenty-four hours in the mountains for a favorable wind and then been blown off course by its fickleness.
News from the north greeted them at the Royal City. Roxburgh had returned already. Tension at the Namarran border had recently eased somewhat. It seemed that for the time being, at least, activity in Namarre had ground to a standstill. Insurrectionary lightning-raids had ceased and no spies had been seen for some time. An impasse had been reached, a breathing space in which the seditionists halted their mustering and proceeded to work only on fortifying their groundworks. As for the Imperial Legions, with most of the heavy equipment already in place, troops were kept busy performing military exercises.
This mortal state of affairs, however, did not apply to unseelie entities, which continued to be drawn, by degrees, into the north. What mortal or entity possessed the power to summon them could only be guessed, but it boded ill for the peace and stability of the Empire. A mood of suppressed fear insinuated itself throughout Caermelor, but the citizens endeavored to go about their daily lives as usual.
New Year's Eve drew nigh. This being the Midwinter festival, Imbrol, and the most important annual feast-time in Erith, the populace spared no effort to realize every traditional custom for the decoration of their surroundings and the entertainment, gratification, and nourishment of themselves. Here was a good reason to set aside their apprehension for a time and immerse themselves in jollity. All over Erith, in hovels and bothies, in cottages and crofts, in marketplaces, smithies, and workshops, in barracks, taverns, malt-houses, and inns, in manor houses, stately homes, and Towers, in halls and keeps, castles and palaces, they set holly garlands on rooftrees, ivy festoons around inglenooks, sprays of mistletoe above the doors and strobiled wreaths of pine and fir and spruce on every available projection. They chopped dried fruits, mixed them with suet, honey, and flour, wrapped this stodge in calico and boiled it for hours, then hung the lumpy puddings like traitors' heads, high in their butteries and spences. These and numerous other things the folk of Erith did in preparation for the Winter Solstice and the birth of the New Year, 1091.
This was the season when young lasses, whose hearts were stirred by something beyond the walls of the mortal world, dwelled upon the frightening and attractive possibility of going out into the wilderness during the long, enigmatic nights of Dorchamis in case the Coillach Gairm, the blue crone as ancient as Winter, as terrible and as miraculous, should choose to come silently, unannounced, and offer to them a coveted staff of power in exchange for whatever mortal asset she might wish to take for herself.
But that way was not for Lady Rohain of the Sorrows. She had no desire to wield eldritch powers through the Wand and would rather retain any human powers of which she found herself in possession. Having lived without several, she now valued them all too highly to risk forfeiture. That was for others to choose. Those who would be carlins generally carried that ambition from childhood.
Although Rohain knew where her future did not lie, she was uncertain as to where it did. In the city, festive splendor was the order of the day. Amidst the bustle and business of the preliminaries to Imbrol, Rohain learned that Ercildoune's nomination for her recognition by a peerage had indeed been sanctioned by the King-Emperor. Creation of a new peerage was a long-drawn and tedious affair; first the Letters Patent must be prepared, after which the new title would be posted and proclaimed. The appointment would be complete when she received the accolade personally from His Majesty. The scribes of the Lord High Chancellor were also arranging the handing over of titles to a modest but choice Crown Estate in Arcune, with a return of two hundred and seventy guineas per year, which was to be bestowed at her investiture. Meanwhile she, as treasure-revealer, had already been gifted with eighty golden guineas (most of which lay locked in the Royal Treasury for safekeeping, but some of which already weighed down the purses of city tradesfolk), and a casket of personal jewelry from Waterstair: rings, bracelets, fillets, torques, gorgets, pins, girdles, the value of which could only be guessed. The amnesiac lackey from the House of the Stormriders had become wealthy beyond all expectation, exalted beyond all hope.
ЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧ
The days leading up to Imbrol took on an insubstantial quality. It was all too much to absorb at once. Later, Rohain could not have explained what her feelings were at that time. She was conscious of performing all actions automatically, of being swept along by a tide of events she herself had set in motion, with visits to the tailor's, the milliner's, the shoemaker's, with Viviana fussing and exclaiming, dramatizing and exaggerating everything in her joy at knowing that at last she was free of the threat of being relegated to the service of the dreaded Dowager Marchioness of Netherby-on-the-Fens, and as if paying for this sense of relief by means of exerting her imagination, sculpting her mistress's hair into ever more fantastic designs and decorating it in ever more novel ways. She was well-intentioned and good-natured, this lady's maid; a lass who had lived a sheltered life, whose most feared hardship was a scolding, whose thoughts skimmed like swallows over the shallows, yet every so often dived deep and shrewdly, whose hands and chattering tongue were always fretting to be busy.
Testing the new powers springing from wealth and recognition, as a youth suddenly waking to manhood would experimentally flex expanded sinews, the prospective Baroness Rohain Tarrenys inquired discreetly after her friends. Messengers were dispatched, returning with the news that both Muirne and Diarmid had been accepted for military service and were training at Isenhammer. Farther afield, of the itinerant Maeve One-Eye there was no sign, which was not surprising, given the current season: Winter was the tenancy of the Coillach Gairm. Inquiries at Gilvaris Tarv resulted in a message via Stormriders that the carlin Ethlinn Kavanagh-Bruadair also had ventured abroad in response to the subliminal call of the Winter Hag, or possibly only from habit. Her whereabouts were unknown. Roisin Tuillimh still dwelt at Tarv, hale and hearty. To Roisin, Muirne, and Diarmid, Rohain anonymously sent gifts. She wished to share her good fortune without revealing a past identity that, certainly at Court, would transform her into the subject of scandal and possibly revulsion.
Of Thorn, she dared not inquire, even discreetly, for she guessed that the Dainnan knights had ways of knowing what was whispered about any of their number. She existed in a paradoxical state between fear of meeting him again and hope of it. While her face had been masked by ugliness and there had been no question of her feelings being reciprocated, to adore him in secret had been the only possibility. She had been able to say to herself, "He cannot look upon me with favor; I am not worthy, but if I could be otherwise, he might look again." Now that a fairer face was revealed, she was vulnerable. If he should look upon her and dismiss her, it would be a rejection of the best she could be, rather than the worst, and thus the ultimate rebuff.