"Elliott,.Kate.-.Crown.Of.Stars.3.-.Burning.Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

road itself, because the roads were lightly traveled. Wherever
she stopped to break her fast or for a night's shelter, she had
no rest as long as she stayed awake. Villagers, deacons,
chatelaines, nuns, even simple day laborers: All of them
wanted gossip of the world beyond because few of them had
ever ventured more than a day's walk from their homeЧand
even fewer had actually seen the king and his court.

"Did the foreign queen die?" they would ask, surprised,
although Queen Sophia had died almost four years ago.

"Lady Sabella rebelled against King Henry's authority?" they
would cry, aghast and amazed, although all this had taken
place a full year before.

"We heard the Eika sacked the city of Gent and are laying the
countryside waste all around," they would confide nervously,
and then she would calm their fears by telling them of the
second battle of Gent and how Count Lavastine and King
Henry had routed the Eika army and restored the ruined city to
human hands.

To them, she was an exotic bird, bright, fleeting, quickly come
and quickly gone. No doubt they would remember her, and her
words, long after she had forgotten them and theirs.

It was a sobering thought.

In the village of Laderne full twenty souls crowded the house
of her host, turning her visit into a festive gathering. They
entertained her with songs and local gossip while she ate, but
as soon as her host brought her a mug of beer after the meal,
th turned their questions on her.

"What's your errand, Eagle? Where did you come from'
Where are you going?"

She had learned to judge how much to say: when to keerf
close counsel or when to be more forthcoming. Many people
favored her with better food the more she told them, and this
old) householder clearly thought her visitor important: She
hadn' watered down the beer. "I'm riding to the palace at
Weraushausen, at the king's order. He left his schola there,
many of his clerics and most of the noble children who attend
the progress. His own young son, Prince Ekkehard, is among
them. I'm to give the word where they are to meet him."

"Weraushausen? Where's that?"

"Beyond the Bretwald," she said. They shook their heads,