"L. Warren Douglas - The Veil of Years 3 - Isle Beyond Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglas L Warren)

"Yes? And then?"

"Then," said the goddess, "you must destroy his kingdom, and he must die."




Chapter 2 тАФ The Scholar
Demands
Below lay Citharista, once a Roman port. Now, centuries after Rome's fall, it was a crumbling fishing
village. On the far side jutted Eagle Cape, three rounded scarps that, from the sea, resembled a raptor's
head. High atop the crest, the walls of the so-called "Saracen fort" were silhouetted against the bright,
blue afternoon sky. Saracens had not built the fort; themagus Anselm had lived there since Caligula's
reign.

Pierrette had no eye for scenery. Kill Minho? The vision of herself on a throne beside the king had
sustained her since her lonely, half-orphaned childhood. When she learned everything about magic, when
the threat of the Black Time was ended, she would wed the handsome king. Kill him? She could sooner
slay her toothless father. And the goddess had given her no idea how she was to accomplish the task,
anyway. How was she, hardly out of childhood, a sorceress more at home with theory (after eons of
study, of course) than with the actual practices of spells, to kill so mighty a sorceror? Angrily, she spat
strong words . . . and a brushy oak beside the path shrivelled, and dropped its leaves, all brown and dry
where a moment before they had been green. Then, relenting, she uttered a softer spell, but did not wait
to see its results. Had anyone been following her, a few hundred paces or so behind, they might have
seen the first tiny green buds appear above the scars where leaf stems had been. Or maybe not. What
people saw wasn't always real, despite their eyes, and what they didn't see was sometimes no less an
illusion.

Pierrette stumbled past the overgrown Roman fountain, through rocky pastures, and out into the valley,
passing ancient olive trees without seeing them, without waving at the men and women in the fields or
nodding to the soldier standing watch at Citharista's rotting gate.

She passed her father's house, and only drew herself up sharply in front of the wine shop. Two finely
saddled horses were hitched there, and two laden mules. What rich strangers had arrived? She caught a
glimpse of a blond head of hair: a tall Frankish boy was checking one mule's lashings. It was the scholar
ibn Saul's apprentice, Lovi.

Pierrette backed away. The mysterious ibn Saul, who voyaged extensively and wrote of his travels, was
drinking wine with Anselm and her father, Gilles. Neither the scholar nor his apprentice had seen Pierrette
except disguised as a boy; even now, almost sixteen, she could still pass for a boy of twelve. Perhaps a
small spell made people look less closely than otherwise.

She slipped away to her father's house, where she kept odds and ends of clothing. She did not want to
reveal her true self to them. Once Lovi, though believing her male, had been attracted to her, and had
distanced himself from his uncomfortable desires by accusing her of being Anselm's catamite, not his
apprentice. That rankled still, and it was all the same to her if Lovi were to continue to suffer the barbs
both of desire and of confusion about his own nature.

The back room of the small, two-room dwelling was windowless and dark. Pierrette could have lit the