"Troy Denning - Forgotten Realms - The Cormyr Saga 02 - Beyond the High Road" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

It was enough to make her want to abdicate.
Seeming to feel the pressure of her gaze, Dauneth looked away from Owden. "My apologies, Princess.
These mountain roads are difficult to keep in good repair."
"A little bumping and jarring won't hurt me, Dauneth." Tanalasta narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, a
face-hardening device she had spent many hours practicing in the reflection of a forest pond. "I'm hardly
the porcelain doll you knew a year ago."
Dauneth's face reddened. "Of course not. I didn't mean-"
"You should have seen me at Huthduth," the princess continued, her voice now light and cheerful.
"Clearing stones out of fields, leading plow oxen, harvesting squash, picking raspberries, hunting wild
mushrooms..."
Tanalasta paused, thinking it better not to add "swimming naked in mountain lakes."
Merula the Marvelous raised an eyebrow, and she felt a sudden swell of anger. Could the wizard be
reading her thoughts?
"You were hunting wild mushrooms, milady?" asked Dauneth. "In the forest?"
"Of course." Tanalasta returned her gaze to Dauneth, still struggling to decide how she would deal with
the wizard's intrusion. "Where else does one hunt for mushrooms?"
"You really shouldn't have," Dauneth said. "The mountains around Huthduth are orc country. If a
foraging mob had come across you...."
"I wasn't aware that protecting me was your purview, Dauneth. Has the king told you something he has
yet to share with me?"
Dauneth's eyes betrayed his surprise at the woman returning from Huthduth. "No, of course not. The
king would hardly confide in me before his own daughter, but I do have a... a reason to be concerned with
your safety."
Tanalasta said nothing, allowing Dauneth a chance to make himself sound less presumptuous by adding
some comment about a noble's duty to safeguard a member of the royal family. When the Warden
remained silent, she realized matters were worse than she had expected. With King Azoun turning
sixty-three in two days and Tanalasta on the far side of thirty-five and still unmarried, people were starting
to wonder if she would ever produce an heir. Certain individuals had even taken it on themselves to hurry
things along-most notably the Royal Magician and State Pain-in-the-Princess's Arse, Vangerdahast. The
crafty old wizard had no doubt arranged to celebrate the king's birthday at House Marliir for the purpose of
advancing Dauneth's courtship.
That would have been fine with Tanalasta, who knew better than anyone that her time to produce an
heir was fast running out. In the past year, the princess had grown more conscious than ever of her duty to
Cormyr and Dauneth had proven himself both a loyal noble and a worthy suitor in the Abraxus Affair
fifteen months before. Nothing would have made her happier than to summon the good Warden to the altar
and get started on the unpleasant business of producing an heir and the princess had made up her mind to
do exactly that when she received word of the celebration in Arabel.
Then the vision had come.
Tanalasta quickly chased from her thoughts all memory of the vision itself, instead picturing Merula the
Marvelous trussed naked on a spit and roasting over a slow fire. If the wizard was spying on her thoughts,
she wanted him to know what awaited if he dared report any particular one to the royal magician,
Vangerdahast would hear of her vision soon enough, and Tanalasta needed to be the one to tell him.
Merula merely continued to glower. "Something wrong, milady?"
"I hope not."
Tanalasta drew back a window flap and turned to watch the High Heath glide by. It was a small plain of
golden checkerboard fields divided into squares by rough stone walls and dotted with thatch-roofed huts.
The simple folk who scratched their living from the place had come out to watch the royal procession
trundle past, and it was not until the princess had waved at two dozen vacant-eyed children without
receiving a response that she realized something was wrong.
She turned to the Harvestmaster beside her. "Owden, look out here and tell me what you think. Is there