"03 - The Stricken Field 1.0." - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

The Stricken FieldThe Stricken Field
Book 3 of A Handful of Men
By Dave Duncan
ISBN: 0-345-38874-7


PROLOGUE
A blustery wind ripped and buffeted at the old house, making roof creak and
casements rattle. Clouds streamed through the night sky and played tag with the
moon. The air smelled of rain now, not snow; spring lurked outside in the damp
woods.
The old woman wandered the empty galleries, clutching a dancing candle in
knotted fingers. She listened to the whisper of the Voices and cackled at their
amusement and their joy.
"Coming, is he?" she said. "Well, you said he would." She paused, thinking she
had heard a living sound, but there was nothing more. It might have been the
child, restless with a new tooth, perhaps. It might have been the soldier. She
had forgotten his name, they all just called him Centurion. He prowled at night,
sometimes, but the Voices warned her where he was and she avoided him.
Dangerous, that one.
The Voices were joyful tonight. The duke was coming, they said, coming to claim
his lady, coming to fulfill his destiny as they had known he would, these many
years.
She wasn't aware of it yet, the lady- didn't know he was coming. Pretty, she
was. Lovely as a dream, even if she was mother to the brat. And cold. The old
couple had a name for her, but they called her Ma'am when they thought they
weren't overheard. They were a count and countess, so what did that make the
lady, that they would be so respectful toward her? She had a husband somewhere.
Not the duke. Husbands had never stopped lovers much, now, had they?
The old folk wouldn't either. Nor the centurion. The Voices knew that.
Cold, she was, but a lover would soon melt the ice. He was on his way at last,
the duke. Coming to claim his lady, his destiny. And hers. The Voices knew.
Wind rattled the casements.


ONE
Auld acquaintances

1
Lord Umpily had never experienced anything in his life as bad as the dungeon. He
did not know how long he had been lying there, alone in the cold, stinking
darkness, but when he heard the clatter of chains and locks and saw the flicker
of light through the peephole in the door and could guess that they had come to
take him away ... well, then he did not want to leave.
Probably he had been there for no more than a week, although it felt like at
least a month. In the darkness and silence he would have welcomed even a rat or
two for company, but the only other residents were the tiny, manylegged kind. He
itched all over; there was a lot of him to itch. He had developed sores from
lying on the hard stone, for the straw provided was rotten and scanty. He had
lost count of meals, but they seemed to come only every second day, or perhaps