"David Drake - General 07 - The Reformer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Solinga smelling of fish and offal and sea salt, narrow crooked streets and whitewashed walls peeling to
show the mud brick, tile roofs and only occasionally the walls and colonnades and courtyard gardens of
the rich. But here, amid the scent of incense and the light silvery tones of hand bells, was the ideal the
reality served.

We may have fallen from our forefathers' power, but this at least we can sayтАФthat we alone gave
godlike things to the gods,he thought with a melancholy pride that edged out the anxiety and grief of his
father's funeral.
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The procession halted as a priest confronted them, a blue-edged fold of his blanketlike mantle over his
head like a hood. "Why do you come to this holy place?"

"To render homage to the Goddess, in such seemly wise as is allowed to mortal men," Adrian's uncle
said, speaking as the eldest adult male of the Gellert clan. Besides, he was paying for the ceremony. "In
memory of Ektar Gellert, a free citizen of this city, that the Maiden may judge him kindly; and in the name
of his sons, Esmond and Adrian Gellert, that She may watch over them in the trials of life."

"Come, then, and do worship."

The procession resumed; Adrian, his brother Esmond, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, hangers-on, with
hired musicians following behind playing double-pipes and lyres. Pilgrims and priests and citizens making
sacrifice parted before them. Their sandals scuffed across the pavement, slabs of white-veined green
marble edged with gold. They passed the Plinth of Victories, a huge column set with the beaks of
captured warships; past the black-basalt fane of Wodep the War God, the pink and gold marble of Etat
the All-Father, and at last to the great raised rectangle of the Maiden's fane. It was a simple affair of giant
white columns, each ending in a riot of golden acanthus leaves. The roof was copper-green tiles, and all
around from pediment to architrave ran mosaic panels done in gold glass, lapis, amber and semiprecious
stones. Some showed the Goddess giving Her gifts to menтАФfire, the plow, the olive, ships, the art of
writing. Others were scenes from the Five Year Festival, the city's knights on their velipads, the Year
Maidens bringing the great embroidered shawl, the athletes naked in their iron pride.

"Follow, then," the priest said.

Hot charcoal fires burned in a pair of tall tripods of fretted bronze. Gravely, Esmond and Adrian strode
up the steps. Each took a silver bowl from the acolytes, pouring a stream of translucent grains into the
white-glowing bed. Fragrant smoke rose, bitter and spicy.

The others drew up a fold of their mantles to cover their heads as the priest raised his hands; the
Goddess' moon was visible over the horns of the roof, the other two moons being below the horizon at
this hour. Adrian's uncle led the sacrifice forward, a white-feathered greatbeast with four gilded horns
and a myrtle wreath around each. It came to the altar willingly enoughтАФdrugged,he thought: no sense in
courting a bad omenтАФand collapsed almost soundlessly as the broadaxe flashed home with a wet, heavy
thud on its neck.

Slowly, the tall ebony and silver doors of the temple slid open, rolling soundlessly on bronze bearings.
Adrian's mind reflexively murmured three citations and an epic poem on the building of the Maiden's