"Kate Forsyth - Eileanan 06 - The Fathomless Caves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forsyth Kate)

to the R├мgh, Lachlan MacCuinn, after her restoration to the throne. For
the first time in hundreds of years, all the lands of Eileanan were united
and at peace.

As the two moons sailed higher in the starry sky, the dancing grew
wilder, the cheering and stamping grew louder, the minstrels' songs grew
bawdier and plates began to get broken. Brun the cluricaun amused the
crowd with his antics, swinging from lantern pole to lantern pole, and
playing his flute while hanging upside down from the trees. Dide the
Juggler walked on his hands, juggling a spinning circle of golden balls
with his feet. He left a trail of broken leaves and twigs behind him, for he
had once again been chosen as the Green Man of the Beltane feast and
so wore leafy branches tied to every limb. With his dark eyes alight with
merriment and his slim muscular body filled with vigor, he was the perfect
choice as the embodiment of the life-force that renewed the world in
springtime.

Isabeau took a sip of goldensloe wine. From the corner of her eye
she could see Dide dancing a spirited jig with a pretty blonde girl as the
crowd clapped and laughed and cheered. Resolutely, Isabeau shifted in
her seat so that she could not see him. She had to remind herself quite
forcibly that she had no time for dillydallying with a fickle, volatile,
unreliable jongleur, no matter how handsome. She looked down at her
right hand, a gleaming jewel on every finger, then lifted her head proudly,
raising the three fingers of her left hand to clasp the petrified owl talon
that hung around her neck on a leather thong.

The rings on Isabeau's right hand were not for mere adornment,
unlike the jewels at the throats and wrists of the other women sitting at
the high table. Like her tall staff crowned with a perfect white crystal and
her austere white robe, the rings showed Isabeau to be a powerful witch.
Isabeau was one of the youngest witches in the history of the Coven to
have won all five of her elemental rings, yet she was hungry to go on and
sit her Sorceress Test. She needed to focus all her will and desire upon
her studies if she hoped to master the High Magic, and no black-eyed
jongleur with a wicked grin was going to distract her from achieving that
goal.

You-whoo gloomy-whoo? the little white owl sitting on the back of
Isabeau's chair hooted anxiously.

"No' at all," Isabeau replied firmly and drained her goblet of
goldensloe wine.

Despite the noise and merriment of the crowds, the company sitting
at the high table did seem rather morose. The R├мgh was slouching on one
elbow, a goblet grasped in one hand, his chin resting in the other. His
glossy black wings were sunk low, his topaz-golden eyes heavy-lidded,
his mouth set sullenly.