"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 04 - The Dragon At War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

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CHAPTER ONE
The copper tea kettle skittered at its magic-given top speed through the woodland track. It had already
polished its bottom shiny on the alternate turf and bare earth it skidded across. Its owner, the AAA+
magician S. Carolinus, had once, many years ago, commanded it always to be three-quarters full of
water for tea; and to have that water on the boil. In spite of its mission, it was faithfully three-quarters full
and on the boil, now.
тАЬOn the boil,тАЭ in CarolinusтАЩs terms, meant that the kettle water was just below the boiling point; so that
Carolinus could have his cup of tea when he wanted it, night or day.
So now the kettle continued to skitter and almost boil. Only as it bounced over the uneven ground, it
occasionally splashed some of that water high against its hotter, dry, higher-up sides; and that water
burst in steam out of its spout.
When this happened it gave a sharp, brief whistle. It could not help whistling, any more than it could help
being on the boil, or going to CarolinusтАЩs rescue-which was what it was doing now. It was only a kettle.
But if, as some folk suspected, the articles of CarolinusтАЩs cottage had personalities of their own, this
kettleтАЩs heart was in its present task.
So, it skittered through the wood-at the best speed with which Carolinus had endowed it-giving voice
occasionally to its sharp whistle; and the creatures of the woodland it passed reacted accordingly.
A bear feeding on all four legs stood up suddenly with a тАЬWhuf!тАЭ of surprise as it went by. Aargh, the
English wolf, who feared nothing but had an ordinary wolfтАЩs prudence where unknown things were
concerned, leaped abruptly to cover behind a tree as it went by, in order to observe it from relative
safety. A boar, farther down the path, who was in the habit of charging anything in sight, on general
principles, blinked his eyes at it, his curly tusks gleaming in the sunlight, got ready to charge-then thought
better of it, in this case.
He backed away, off the path, and let the little kettle pass.
So it proceeded. Deer fled from it; small burrowing creatures dived into their burrows at the sight of it.
In short, it spread consternation in every direction as it passed. But, this was only the beginning, the
preamble to what happened when at last it broke out of the trees into the cleared area surrounding the
Castle de Bois de Malencontri, the castle of that gentleman, the famous Dragon Knight: Baron Sir James
Eckert de Bois de Malencontri et Riveroak (currently not in residence).
The kettle skittered across the cleared area, mounted the bridge over the moat, and shot through the
open great gates in the curtain wall of the castle. There was a guard on duty at the gate. But he did not
see the kettle until it began to clatter across the logs which made up the bridge. When he did, he nearly
dropped his spear. He was under orders never to leave his post for any reason-as fourteenth-century
guards on the front gates of castles always were. But in this particular case he held on frantically to his
spear and ran full speed ahead of the kettle into the courtyard, shouting at the top of his voice.
тАЬGone mad! I always said he would!тАЭ muttered the castle blacksmith, glancing up briefly from the open
shelter above his forge in the courtyard, carefully built away from anything else it might set fire to. The
blacksmith had lowered his eyes again by the time the kettle went by, and he dismissed the sharp
whistles he heard as merely a ringing in his ears.
Meanwhile the guard had fled through the open door of the castle into the Great Hall, still shouting.
тАЬA witch-kettle! A witch-kettle. Help!тАЭ His voice rang against the walls of the Great Hall and back into
the castle itself, bringing other servants flooding out. тАЬItтАЩs following me! Help! Help!тАЭ
His voice reached even to the kitchen of the castle where the Lady Angela de Bois de Malencontri et
Riveroak was telling the cook-for the several hundredth time-that after returning from the outhouse she