"Dave Duncan - A Man Of His Word 1 - Magic Casement" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

that he was in the royal bedchamber, which was astonishing news at that time of
day. It also meant more stairs, but anywhere meant more stairs in Krasnegar.
The royal chamber was located at the top of the great tower, known as Inisso's
Tower, and she wound her way up the spiral stairs that ran within the walls.
There were far too many levels--throne room, presence chamber, robing room,
antechamber... Pausing to catch her breath in the withdrawing room, Inos
wondered, and not for the first time, why in the names of all the Gods her
father did not move his quarters to somewhere more convenient.
The withdrawing room was her favorite, though. When Aunt Kade had returned from
Kinvale two years ago, she had brought a whole roomful of furniture-not the
heavy, antique, stuffing-falling-out furniture that cluttered most of the
palace, but supremely elegant gilt and rosewood, with incredibly slender legs,
with roses and butterflies embroidered on the cushions, and the woodwork all
glossy. There was no room more gracious in all of Krasnegar. Even the rugs were
works of art. While Inos would never be so disloyal to her mother's memory as to
admit the fact, she loved the withdrawing room as Aunt Kade had remade it.
Sufficiently recovered to move, she crossed the withdrawing room, went up more
stairs, across what they now called the dressing room, but which had been her
bedroom until quite recently, and finally-more slowly than when she had
started-up the final stair to her father's door.
It was ajar, so she walked in.
With very mixed feelings, she glanced over the clumsy, massive furnishings. She
came here rarely now, and for the first time she saw how shabby they all were,
the trappings of an aging widower who clung to old familiar things without
regard to their state of wear. The crimsons had faded, the golds tarnished,


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colors and fabrics become dull and sad. The drapes were shabby, the rugs a
disgrace. Her mother's portrait still hung over the fireplace, but it was
blurred by smoke stain.
Many, many icy mornings Inos had cuddled into that great bed between her
parents, under the heaped furs of winter, and yet those memories were overlain
now by a last transparent image of her mother, burning away in fever when the
great sickness had come on the first ship of spring and stalked all that
terrible summer through the town.
Never mind that...
No one was there!
Furiously she pouted, glaring around as if the furniture itself were at fault.
The drapes on the four-poster were pulled back, so her father was not in bed,
and she could not imagine him going to bed in the middle of the day anyway. She
eyed the wardrobe, but the chances that King Holindarn of Krasnegar would hide
inside a wardrobe did not seem worth crossing a room to investigate. The windows
were deeply recessed, but on those, also, the drapes were open. There was
nowhere...
Uneasily Inos turned to retrace her steps and then hesitated. A vagueness
niggled at the back of her mind. She took another quick glance around, shrugged,
and moved toward the stair again... And stopped again. Her scalp prickled. There