"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 1 - Stronghold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

"The Lady Chayla would blind a sighted man and cause the sightless to see! Who is she? Who is her father? When may I beg him for her hand?"
"You don't change, do you? Even at sixteen years old you tried to seduce every woman within a hundred measures! Don't waste your time with this one, my friend. She's the daughter of Lord Maarken, the granddaughter of Lord Chaynal, and the great-granddaughter of Prince Zehava. Not to mention the niece of the Lord of Goddess Keep and the grand-niece of the High Prince himself."
Kazander's face grew longer with each addition to the list of Chayla's exalted kin. "I obey, mighty athri. I will not touch. I would not dare! But you wouldn't be so cruel as to forbid me to look, would you?"
"Go right ahead. Not that she'll notice you looking. Come, let's take our ease in Feylin's chambers. I recently had a shipment of a rather good mossberry wine from the High Princess' own home of River Run."
"You are planning to poison me!"
Soon they were alone in the solar, with full goblets and a selection of fruit and cheese to hand. Kazander complained for a few moments about gutless Syrene wines, but Walvis saw that his heart wasn't in it. And suddenly the young man became too serious for Walvis' peace of mind.
"There are signs," he said in answer to Walvis' inquiry, "and though I know you hold little with magic other than that of Sunrunners, I know you will hear me. A three-
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legged goat was born at New Year. It bleated three times and died. A cloud was seen like a sail over the Sunrise Water, all afire. It advanced over the cliffs and swallowed them up in flames. From Dorva! came a great gust of wind that blew down a hundred tents, killing eight people. Shimmer-visions in the Desert have been not of the usual water or green grass, but of blood."
Walvis knew he ought not smile at Isulki superstitions. He had witnessed Sunrunners and sorcerers do too many incredible things to joke at other beliefs. Still, he had always heard these portents of the Desert tribes with a certain degree of amusement. Kazander's dark solemnity was something new in his experience.
"And to your wisest ones, all this means . . . ?" he asked.
"The goatЧthat terrible things await, and will last three seasons or three years, depending on who one consults. The cloud is interpreted as disaster descending upon the Desert in the form of fire." He paused, and a hint of a smile touched his mouth. "Although I remember that ten springs ago, Sunrunner's Fire very nearly incinerated us all!"
Walvis smiled back, remembering how Pol had ignited the very sands in his battle against lanthe's son Ruval. The young prince had been teased ever since about a tendency toward arson. In fact, it had been this inconceivable occurrence that had brought Kazander and his father to Remagev to find out just what in Hells had caused it.
Kazander went on, "The great wind tells us that the danger and death will come from Dorval."
"Impossible, Kazander."
"The noble Prince Chadric can have no possible quarrel with us here. Unless the mighty atkri, husband to the legendary Princess Tobin, has been cheating him on the silk revenues again." They both smiled at the old joke, but Walvis saw that Kazander was only going through the expected motions. "The final sign, that of blood-visions, I have seen myself. I am not ashamed to admit that while any one of these might be dismissed, taken all together they frighten me."
"Only a fool ignores the warnings of the Goddess. Is it your wish that I inform the High Prince?"
The korrus nodded. "Yes. There is one other thing. A star was seen risingЧnot falling, mind you, risingЧinto the
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constellation of the Father of Dragons. This can mean only one thing."
"Pol."
"None other."
"So despite these horrors to come, Pol will prevail."
Kazander hesitated, then shrugged. "I would be serving him and you badly if I did not repeat the caution our wisest ones gave me. Whereas most are agreed that this star means ascendency, there are some who warn that it may mean the opposite. That Prince Pol will indeed ascendЧbut on Desert winds, his ashes to join with those of his azhrei ancestors."
Walvis took a long swallow of wine. "This is not an interpretation I favor, Kazander. And I don't believe the High Prince will like it much, either."
There was no banquet that night. One had been planned for the following evening to celebrate the conclusion of the annual little war, and Feylin declined to upset her household by destroying their careful arrangements. The Isulk'im ate in the mess, their korrus with Walvis, Feylin, and Chayla. Kazander was as flamboyant in his praise and as outrageous in his suggestions to Feylin as ever, but hardly addressed a word to Chayla. He did, however, look. Constantly.
After he left to check on his men and horses, Chayla asked Walvis, "What in the world is his problem?"
"What do you mean?"
"Have my teeth turned green? Doesn't he like me? He wouldn't talk to me at allЧjust stared!"
Feylin covered laughter with a fit of coughing. Her preemption of that ployЧit would have seemed odd if they'd both choked on wine simultaneouslyЧleft the time-honored "I dropped something on the floor" for Walvis. He searched the carpet beneath his chair until he could control his features, then sat up again and smiled, the deliberately jettisoned spoon in his hand.
"Believe it or not, Kazander is rather shy around young ladies."
This brought another spasm from Feylin. Chayla turned to her. "Are you all right, my lady?"
"SwallowedЧthe wrong wayЧ" she gasped, covering her mouth with a napkin while tears streamed from her eyes.
"I don't know much about the Isulk'im," Chayla went on.
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"We never see them at Whitecliff. The korrus seems nice enough, if a little. ..."
"Overly eloquent?" Walvis suggested. "Something you have to understand about them is that while other men's wives and girls under twelve or so are fair game for their flattery, an unmarried woman is left strictly alone until one has approached her father for permission to speak to her. You're not a child, and your father isn't here, soЧ" He finished with a shrug.
Feylin had recovered. "You should have heard Kazander's father when Sionell was little. He swore up canyons and down dunes that when she was old enough, he'd carry her off on his saddle to become his sixth wifeЧor was it the seventh?"
"Seven wives?" Chayla's blue eyes widened. "I don't like that much!"
"Neither did Sionell." Feylin was at last able to indulge herself freely in laughter. "I can still see her, planting both feet in the sand with her fists on her hips, telling him that while she was very honored to be considered, no woman but herself would rule in her homeЧbe it castle, cottage, or tent!"
After Chayla bid them good night, they conducted a little business with their steward in the cool of the evening, then went for a stroll around the upper walls of the castle to watch for dragons. The creatures seldom ventured this far into the Long Sand, which Walvis regretted but which was just fine with his wife. She loved themЧbut at a safe distance. This was the time of year for it, though, if they were to see dragons at all. After the triennial mating in the Desert, after the caves had been walled up with eggs inside to bake through the summer, after the hatchlings had flown, dragons lingered for a while before flying south to the Catha Hills and their wintering grounds. They sometimes ranged east to Remagev and west to the city of Waes. Every summer except mating years, they were a common sight from Syr to Fessenden, with their main precincts in the Veresch. Now that they were no longer hunted as adults or butchered as hatchlings, and the caves at Rivenrock Canyon were in use once more, the dragon population had increased to a number Feylin considered safe. This year more than eight hundred dragonsЧsires, mature females, three-year-olds and new hatchlingsЧhad been seen in flight.
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The Lord and Lady of Remagev watched the skies until night was full upon them, but they saw no dragons. "Perhaps we should have asked Chayla if there are any in our area tonight," Feylin mused.
"I don't think she's picked up the knack of it yet. Pol came to it late, though, so I suppose she might, too."
Chayla had not yet shown signs of having inherited the odd family trick of sensing dragons before they could be seen. Rohan had it, and Tobin, and Pol and Maarken and Andry. It was said of old Prince Zehava that he could tell merely by glancing at the clouds when the dragons would appear on the wind. Walvis hoped the trait would not be lost; it was always amusing to watch outsiders blanch and stare when Zehava's descendants turned their faces as one toward the sky. It was almost as much fun as observing the reactions of those who had never before seen a Sunrunner at work.
"Busy day tomorrow," Feylin said at length. "Will you explain Kazander's part to him in the morning?"
"YesЧto give him as little time as possible to work out his own variations on it. You know how he is."
"Scamp," she grumbled fondly. "Speaking of which, you didn't have to make me laugh so hard! I nearly choked to death when you told Chayla that Kazander is shy!"
"Except, you know, I think he really was shy around her." He slipped one arm around her waist and they started back to the inner stairs. Torches in iron holders along the parapets lit their way. Walvis occasionally came home from a hunt after dark, and the sight of Remagev with its glowing crown of light was always an impressive one. He nodded to the sentry on duty and continued to his wife, "He hasn't met any highborn young ladies now that he's of an age to appreciate them. Ell was always just that bit too much older than he."
"Oh, don't be silly! Chayla's barely fifteen!" She laughed and ducked around the door he held open for her. "Can't you just see her living out on the Long Sand in a tent?"