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

"Yarin is of the old line, and would start it up all over again," she said, nodding. "Yes, I see. But you're not doing this for Edirne's ease as the next Prince of Fessenden. You're doing it for me, and for Lenig."

He made an abashed shrug and let her think what she liked. As he returned indoors, he reflected that it was easier than telling her the truth.

He'd learned it himself from his uncle. Almost two years ago, after his wife's death in a hunting accident, Milosh had fled into the hills on his swiftest horse. Some said he wanted to escape his sorrow, others that he wanted to find death, still others that he wanted to find and kill the stag whose chase had caused her fall from the saddle. Instead, a diarmadhi found him. The sorcerer

had died and Milosh had come home, and had not left his holding since.

Camanto, who was friend as well as nephew, had been the only one to whom Milosh confided that he'd had no hand in destroying the man who captured him. "I was trussed in a chair. He went outside for more wood, I heard him scream, and when I finally got myself loose I found him in the clearing, charred to a crisp. Another sorcerer, Sunrunners, I've no ideaЧbut he was dead by someone's fire, with no one around but me."

It was something else about the incident that motivated Camanto now. The sorcerer had said almost nothing to Milosh, not even why he'd been taken or what was planned for him. On his way back to Fessada after making sure his uncle was recovering from the ordeal, Camanto had ridden alone up to the cottage. There he had found three interesting things: a crystal goblet, a small sack of coins, and a coverlet on the bed. The money was undoubtedly payment for Milosh's abduction. The goblet and quilt, however, made little sense until he noted the colors: the ice white and winter-sun yellow of Snowcoves.

The quilt was new, silk on one side, velvet on the other. The goblet was as fine a piece of work as any Camanto had ever seen, with the hallmark of Snowcoves' court glassmaster on the bottom. How would someone living in a hillside hovel, and so far from Firon as well, acquire such expensive items?

He'd worked his mind around it all the way back to Fessada. Payment and tokens of favor; they had to be. To a sorcerer, from someone rich and important enough in Snowcoves to buy from Lord Yarin's own personal crystaller. If Yarin himself wasn't diarmadhi, then someone close to him must be.

Camanto had burned the quilt and shattered the goblet in the hearth. He told no one. Who would believe it? Stirring up the old troubles between Fessenden and Firon with only a suspicion would avail nothingЧand might injure Milosh, for Camanto's suspicions included him. He would never willingly join in treason, but no one knew what sorcerers could do to a man. Revenge for

some petty personal grudge was the accepted reason for the abduction. Coins, goblet, and quilt said otherwise. Sunrunners could use eyes and ears other than their own; why not sorcerers? Princess Chiana been suborned by a diarmadhi witch. It was possible. Milosh had been held for almost two days. Who knew but that he had been made a creature of the diarmadh'im without his knowledge? It was much better that he stayed at his own holding and away from Fessada.

When rumor and then Fessada's court Sunrunner established Lord Yarin at Balarat, Camanto knew that just as the sorcerers had tried to take Princemarch by killing Pol and using Chiana, now they were attempting to claim Firon. Whether or not Yarin himself was diarmadhi made little difference. Surely they were his allies. It all made too much sense; in ages past they had retreated to the Veresch in the face of faradhi supremacy. There could be thousands of them in the mountains, ready to come at Yarin's call once Balarat was secured. And where would they go next but Fessenden on their way to Princemarch?

Camanto was well aware that the mere thought of facing a whole army of sorcerers would destroy the fighting will of any force raised against them. Better that they not know. He knew, and it scared him more than the Vellant'im ever could.

By all reports, the Vellant'im shouted "Diarmadh'im!" as their battle cry. Yarin could also be receiving support from them. No dragon-headed ships had been sighted sailing north to Snowcoves, but that might only be because of the miserable weather. They might be waiting for spring, until after the south was theirs, to assist Yarin and his diarmadhi confederates in the north.

Camanto knew how vulnerable his homeland was. Einar could be seized in a day, the lower Ussh River taken in a four-day march. Fessada would be the work of an afternoon. Ensuring that the enemy did not get past Einar was his duty as a Prince of Fessenden. And once he accomplished it, there would be no question of his brother Edirne's continuing as their father's heir.

All autumn he had debated the merits of asking Lord Andry's help. The Lord of Goddess Keep and his Sunrunners had doneЧsomethingЧto kill the sorcerer. More, they had done it from an incredible distance, even greater than that bridged by Sioned in building her dome of starfire around the battle between Rohan and Roel-stra. They might perform the same service for Camanto now. They might give his army an edge if it came to fighting sorcery.

Andry's own actionsЧor lack of themЧkept Camanto from contacting Goddess Keep. No one, no matter the need, had been helped at any distance by Andry. What did it matter that Rohan had restricted use of faradhi arts to the defense of Goddess Keep? Andry's duty was to protect the princedoms. He hadn't. And Pol would never ask for his help. A man would have to be monumentally witless not to know how things stood between Andry and Pol. Camanto despised Edirne, but the emotion was grounded in contempt. He didn't fear his brother the way those two feared each other's power. Andry had let Radzyn, his own birthplace, be taken; what did he care about all of Fessenden?

No, Camanto would not ask help from the Lord of Goddess Keep. And once Pirro was dead and he was Prince of Fessenden, both Andry and Pol could rot for all the support he would ever give them in anything.

And he would be Prince of Fessenden. Totally honest with himself, if not with those around him, he knew his actions were motivated by equal parts ambition for his future, loathing for his brother, and love for his princedom. Desire for Arnisaya was purely secondary, but made things more amusing.

So that night he had a little talk with his father and brother. Two mornings laterЧas Pol started for Feruche, Tallain for Tiglath, and the maimed Cunaxans and Mer-ida for their homesЧCamanto stood once again in his tower chamber, watching his brother ride a beautiful black horse out into the snow. A measure away at the river, as many troops as could be gathered in so brief a

time had assembled for Edirne's inspectionЧand Ca-manto's eventual use.

*

For the first thirty-two years of her life, Princess Nay-dra had been a daughter of High Prince Roelstra. For the next thirty-two, she was the wife of Lord Narat of Port Adni. The former had been an accident of birth; the latter was a blessing for which she thanked the Goddess every day of her life.

Her father was long dead. Now her husband was dead too, having succumbed to a chronic weakness of the lungs early in autumn at Waes. Neither father nor husband was alive to give name, definition, meaning to her life. Had she borne a son, she would have devoted herself entirely to him and been content. Daughter to a father, wife to a husband, mother to a son: a gentle womanly circle, a perfect life. But completion of it was denied her, for she had no son, and no means of defining herself.

She was still a princess, still Lady of Port Adni. But the titles were empty as blown eggshells without the men who had given them. People said "your grace" and "my lady" and the words meant nothing.

The day after Cluthine left for Tilal's camp and did not return, Princess Pallia's tutor came to Naydra's chambers, bowed low, and gave her a new title.