"Sara Douglass - The Troy Game 1 - Hades' Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

Ariadne stumbled in the sand, sinking to her knees with a sound that was half
sigh, half sob.
'It is best this way," Theseus said as he had already said a score of times this
morning, bending to offer Ariadne his arm. "It is clear to me that you cannot
continue with the fleet."
Ariadne managed to gain her feet. She placed one hand on her bulging belly,
and stared at her lover with eyes stripped of all the romantic delusion that had
consumed her for this past year. "This is your child! How can you abandon it?
And me?"
Yet even as she asked that question, Ariadne knew the answer. Beyond
Theseus lay a stretch of beach, blindingly white in the late morning sun. Where
sand met water waited a small boat and its oarsmen. Beyond that small boat,
bobbing lazily at anchor in the bay, lay Theseus' flagship, a great oared war
vessel.
And in the prow of that ship, her vermilion robes fluttering and pressing
against her sweet, lithe body, stood Ariadne's younger sister, Phaedre.
Waiting for her lover to return to the ship, and sail her in triumph to Athens.
Theseus carefully masked his face with bland reason. "Your child is due in but
a few days. You cannot give birth at seaтАФ"
'I can! I can!"
'тАФand thus it is best I leave you here, where the villagers have midwives to
assist. It is my decision, Ariadne."
'It is her decision!" Ariadne flung a hand toward the moored ship.
'When the baby is born, and you and she recovered, then I will return, and
bring you home to Athens."
'You will not," Ariadne whispered. "This is as close to Athens as ever I will
achieve. I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and we only ever bear daughtersтАФ
what use have we for sons? But you have no use for daughters. So Phaedre shall
be your queen, not I. She will give you sons, not I."
He did not reply, lowering his gaze to the sand, and in his discomfort she
could read the truth of her words.
'What have I done to deserve this, Theseus?" she asked.
Still he did not reply.
 She drew herself up as straight as her pregnancy would allow, squared her
shoulders, and tossed her head with some of her old easy arrogance. "What has
the Mistress of the Labyrinth done to deserve this, my love?"
He lifted his head, and looked her full in the face, and in that movement
Ariadne had all the answer she needed.
'Ah," she said softly. "To the betrayer comes the betrayal, eh?" A shadow fell
over her face as clouds blew across the sun. "I betrayed my father so you could
have your victory. I whispered to you the secrets which allowed you to best the
labyrinth and to murder my brother. I betrayed everything I stand for as the
Mistress. All this I did for you. All this betrayal worked for the blind folly of love."
The clouds suddenly thickened, blanketing the sun, and the beach at
Theseus' back turned gray and old.
'The gods told me to abandon you," Theseus said, and Ariadne blanched at
the blatant lie. This had nothing to do with the gods, and everything to do with
his lusts. "They came to me in a vision, and demanded that I set you here on
this island. It is their decision, Ariadne. Not mine."
Ariadne gave a short, bitter laugh. Lie or not, it made no difference to her.