"Phyllis Eisenstein - Born to Exile" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

By the same author
Sorcerer's Son
The Crystal Palace




To Alex,
without whose support
this book
could never have been written

1
Born to Exile
The sun of Alaric's fifteenth summer beat down on his head as he stared at the moat, the drawbridge, and
the broad walls of Castle Royale. A dusty wind swirled around him, adding another layer of grime to his
dark, travel-stained clothes and drying the rivulets of sweat on his face and neck. He shifted his knapsack
with a shrug, and the lute that was strapped to it twanged softly.
Presently a man in light armour came out of the shack on the near side of the bridge and glared at the
boy from under an enor-mous, beetle-browed helmet. He held a broadsword at ready. 'Ident-ify
yourself.'
Alaric swept off his peaked black cap and bowed as much as his pack permitted. 'My name is Alaric,
and by trade I'm a minstrel. Having been advised by many that my songs are worthy, I come to offer
them to His Majesty and, in short, to become a hanger-on at court.'
The guard grunted. 'What weapons do you carry?'
Alaric's slender fingers touched his worn leather belt. 'None but a paltry dagger, useful for carving fowl
and bread. And the feather in my cap, for tickling my enemies to death.'
'Empty your pack on the ground and give me that stringed thing.'
While Alaric demonstrated that the pack held nothing but a brown cloak, a grey shirt, and four extra
lute strings, the guard examined the lute. He shook it, peered into it, rapped it with his knuckles. At last,
satisfied that it was nothing dangerous, he returned it to its owner and motioned for the boy to repack his
knapsack.
'Gunter!' he shouted. A second man, seeming, in his identically patterned armour, to be a twin to the
first, appeared from the shack.

'Take him inside to the Great Hall. He seems to be a jester, even if he says he's a minstrel. Be sparing of
your wit, boy. We already have a jester.'
Alaric swung the pack over one shoulder, the lute over the other, and followed Gunter across the
bridge. He did not glance back, but in his mind's eye he could see the twisting, turning road that had
brought him to this place. How many miles it was, he knew not. For him, it was measured in months,
beginning on that grey day in the Forest of Bedham - eight long months and tens of thousands of steps
carrying him away from Dall's lonely grave. Eight months through forest and field, asking directions of
peasants in hovels and of merchants shepherding their caravans of goods to market; eight months in
which he was hardly even tempted to use his witch's power to speed his journey - he needed a
clear and precise knowledge of the location of his destination for that, and he had none. He had walked,
as normal men did, pretending to be one of them as Dall had always advised, and he had finally arrived at
Castle Royale, in search of his fortune.