"Sara Douglass - The Troy Game 2 - God's Concubine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

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 Sarah Douglass - God's Concubin


who addressed Caela (apart from the occasional shouted enthusiasm from her gloating
father) was the man who sat on her right side.
This man, unhappy looking where Edward was sullen and Godwine buoyant, was
considerably younger than either of the other two men. In his early twenties, Harold
Godwineson was the earl's eldest surviving son and thus heir to all that Godwine
controlled (lands, estates, offices, and riches, as well as the English throne, which meant
that Edward loathed Harold as much as he did Godwine).
Like his father, Harold was a warrior, blooded and proved in a score of savage, death-
ridden battles, but, unlike Godwine, a man who also had the sensitive soul of a bard. That
bard's sensibility showed in Harold's face and his dark eyes, in the manner of his
movements and his engaging ability to give any who spoke to him his full and undivided
attention. His hair was dark
blond, already stranded with gray, which he kept warrior-short, as he did the faint
stubble of his darker beard. He was a serious man who rarely laughed, but who, when he
smiled, could lighten the heart of whomever that smile graced.
Harold was not so richly accoutred as his father and his new brother-in-law, although
well-dressed and jewelled enough as befitted his status of one of the most powerful men
in England. Like Edward, Harold toyed with his wine cup, rarely bringing it to his lips.
Unlike Edward, Harold spent a great deal of time watching his sister, occasionally
reaching out to touch her with a reassuring hand, or to lean close and whisper something
that sometimes, almost, made the girl's mouth twitch upward. Harold had adored Caela
from birth, had watched over her, had spent an inordinate amount of time with her, and
had argued fiercely with their father when he proposed the match with Edward.
Some people had rumored that it was not so much the match that Harold raged about,
but that the girl was to be wedded and bedded at all. In recent years, as Caela approached
her womanhood, Harold's attachment to his sister had attracted much sniggering
comment. There was more than one person in the hall this night who, under the influence
of unwatered wine or rich cider and who thought themselves far enough distant from the
dais to dare the whisper, had proposed that Godwine's flamboyant happiness this eve was
due more to his relief that he'd managed to get his daughter as a virgin to Edward's bed
than at the marriage itself, as advantageous as that might be.
If one were to guess, one might think that Harold's wife, sitting on his other side, had
been party to (if not the instigator of) many of these whispers. Swanne (also an Eadyth,
but known far and wide as Swanne for her beautiful long white neck and elegant head
carriage) sat almost as still as Caela, but with her head held high on her lovely neck, her
almond-shaped black eyes watching both her husband and his sister with much private

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 Sarah Douglass - God's Concubin


amusement.
Swanne was a stunningly beautiful woman. Of an age with Harold, or perhaps a year or
two older, she had black hair that, when unveiled and unbound, snapped and twisted
down her back in wild abandon. Her skin was as pale as Caela's, but drawn over a face