"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 2 - Dragon Token" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

╗WeЧ"

He swung around as the door crashed open and three armed guards came into the room. Panic flayed him; he hadn't been careful enough, someone had seenЧ

"Get dressed," one of the men commanded, all three of them running appreciative eyes over Mevita in her bedgown.

"Get out of my chamber!" Rialt shouted.

"You've been given a new one," was the smug reply. "Better dress warm for it." He started for the bed.

Rialt drew his knife. "Touch my wife at your peril."

"No, my lord, don't!" Mevita gasped. "We'll come with you," she hurried on, pulling the sheet around her as she rose. "Give us a moment to find some clothesЧ"

"Be quick about it. And I'll have that knife, my lord," the guard said, with snide emphasis on the title.

Mevita's pleading eyes and the sudden thought of their son made him surrender the blade. "I'm the one you want. Leave my wife alone."

"Orders are to take you both. Be grateful your whelp's young enough to be innocent of treason."

"Treason?" he repeated blankly, weak with relief that Polev would be spared. But what would happen to him with his parents in prison? For surely that was the nature of their "new chamber."

"That's enough talk. Take the rest of your clothes with you. Hurry up!"

The corridors of Swalekeep were empty of all but a few servants as the pair were marched to a side staircase. Rialt steadied Mevita; she stumbled against him at the sight of the endless dark below. A torch was lit and they descended hundreds of stepsЧdown past the wine cellars, past even the coldrooms where meat was stored. At last they came to a row of wooden doors with small barred windows. One was opened, and they were locked in a frozen, lightless room.

"You'll wait on Princess Chiana's pleasure," the guard said through the barred window. He racked the torch in a sconce and marched his men back up the stairs.

Mevita sank onto the single cot and put her face in her hands. "Forgive me," she breathed.

Rialt knelt before her on the damp stones. "It's not your fault."

She shook her head, her hair spilling over her hands.

"They must have discovered what I did tonight at the warehouses." Slashing every sack of grain and fouling every crate of foodstuffs would have cost too much time and effort. It had taken much thought to devise a way to deprive Swalekeep of its supplies.

Mevita raked her hair back from her face. "Not fire. The alarm would've sounded by now."

"No. Water. The river's highЧnot at spring flood, but enough. I weakened the sluices. They should break sometime today."

Her eyes brightened a little. "Like a castle cleaning out its moat."

He nodded. That had been the theory when the system was built. A century or so earlier, accumulated filth had caused an outbreak of disease directly traced to food stored in a particular warehouse. Some clever architect had pointed out the convenient slope of the area and suggested an easy method of cleansing all the storage spaces. Ditches were dug, lined with stone, and paved over; access and drainage were cut in each successive building. Every autumn since, just before the harvest influx of goods, river water was let in to scour vermin and debris awayЧfor what had happened once might happen again. But with the river high and the outlets closed, the water could not drain off as intended.

"The water will flow strongly enough to overset the sacks of grain," Rialt said. "If I'm lucky, they'll lodge against the drains and the whole place will be flooded hip-high before anyone can do anything. It has the advantage of looking accidentalЧ"

He tensed at a sudden noise outside the cell, but it was only the scrabbling of rats, soon followed by the irritated hiss of a cat frustrated in the hunt.

"With her food stores ruined, Chiana might be forced to make her decision a little sooner. People won't starveЧbut when they know their grain is no longer plentiful. . . ." He shrugged.