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

the sleeping Matilda. Gods, he'd had to fight so hard for her! They'd first met just over three


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 Sarah Douglass - God's Concubin


years ago at the court of Matilda's father, Baldwin, the count of Flanders. Matilda had
been fourteen, small and dark and vivacious, and half the princes and dukes of Europe
had sought her hand (and the considerable dowry and alliances that would come with it).
William had gone to Baldwin's court, not to woo Matilda, but to woo her father, from
whom William hoped to gain much needed financial and military aid in his constant
struggle to repel rival claimants to his dukedom. William had been struggling to retain
Normandy ever since he'd assumed the dukedom at the age of seven. Not only was his
age against him, but also the fact that William was the bastard-get of the duke, his father,
on a tannery wench. In the thirteen years since his ascension and his first sight of Matilda
of Flanders, William had spent the greater part of each year on the battlefield. No one had
expected a bastard son, let alone one of such tender years, to hold out thirteen years, but
during his first vulnerable years, William had enjoyed the support of a number of
powerful allies, notable among them the king of France. By the time William was fifteen
he both led his armies and devised his strategies himselfтАФalmost as if he had been a great
leader of men and armies before.
/vs it, some rumored, he somehow managed to draw on the experience of a past life as
a victorious king instead of a few meager years as the son of a tannery wench.
Thirteen years he'd struggled, and then William had met Matilda. On that fateful day,
William's only thought, as he strode toward the count's dais, had been of Baldwin and
what the count could do for him, but then his eyes had fallen on the tiny form of
Baldwin's daughter standing by her father's throne. William had muttered a cursory
greeting to Baldwin, and had then turned to Matilda, took her hand, smiled down into her
eyes, and said, "You were made for me."
At that remark there were several audible gasps and one hastily swallowed giggle from
among the members of Baldwin's court. Their shocked humor was not simply at
William's audacity. At fourteen, Matilda was a mere four feet tall and would grow only
another inch throughout the rest of her life.
William was six and a half feetтАФan amazing height in an age when most men were
grateful to achieve five and a halfтАФand with broad shoulders and heavy, tight muscles.
Combined with his dark, exotic looks (some questioned the tannery wench maternity, and
opined that the previous duke had got his son on some lost Greek princess) and bold
demeanor and bearing, William cut an imposing figure.
He certainly looked too large to wed the dainty Matilda without causing her serious
bodily damage.
But Matilda had not cared about William's bastardy, nor worried about his large-than-
life physicality. She wanted him the instant his mouth grazed her hand and he spoke those

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 Sarah Douglass - God's Concubin


words: You were made for me.
Europe objected. Frustrated and disappointed princely suitors petitioned the pope, who