"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 09 - The Dragon and the F" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

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Gordon R. Dickson - The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent


give Jim ward of the orphaned baby, Robert Falon.

Today, the Bishop had brought part of the silk, already made into the frontal of
one altar cloth, to show it offтАФso went the intricate business of gift-giving in the
high Middle Ages.

тАж I have just had wordтАФ" the good prelate had begun by saying, once he, Jim
and Angie were safely private below Malencontri's tower top in the Solar
apartment. He had reached for another small cake. "тАФthat the plague has
reached London."

But it's too early!" Jim almost said aloud before he caught himself. In the history
of his world and Angie's, the plague had only just reached Genoa in a rat-
infested ship, sometime between the years of 1347 and 1349.

The times of their world and this were out of whack. They were not just off by a
set number of years, as the early Julian calendar and the later, modern one of Jim
and Angie's future century had been found to be. Various important incidents,
like the deaths of kings or the year of a decisive battle, seemed to be taking place
here at unexpectedly different times.

Meanwhile, having stunned his two listeners with his news, the good Bishop
took up his wineglass and sipped from it.

"Yes," he went on, "it moves swiftly. Already, there are villages in France where
not a soul has survived."

"I thought those were just stories!" said Jim.



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Gordon R. Dickson - The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent


"Unfortunately, they are true, Sir James. The Fiend is among us, and it is our
duty, not only within the Church but without, to do what we can to deny him at
least some of his victims."

These last words came out with a more steely edge than Jim had expected to
hear, even from this prelate. The Bishop (Richard de Bisby) came from one of
those families of the upper nobility called magnates. Families such as that of the
Earl of Oxford, families in which, under the rule of primogeniture, the eldest son
inherited everything, and the younger sons were either sent into the Church or
pointed toward the military.