"2 - Last Sword Of Power (v1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

'He's soul-weary,' said Gwalchmai.'Did you ask him?'
'Yes.'
'And?'
'What do you think, my friend?'
'If he dies, we are lost,' said Gwalchmai. He was a tall man, stern-eyed under bushy grey brows, and his long silver hair was braided after the fashion of his Cantii forebears. 'I fear for him. Ever since the Betrayal . . .'
'Hush, man!' hissed Victorinus, taking his comrade by the arm and leading him away into the night.
Inside the tent Uther's eyes opened. Throwing off the blanket, he poured himself some more wine and this time added no water.
The Great Betrayal. Still they spoke of it. But whose was the betrayal, he wondered? He drained the wine and refilled the goblet.
He could see them now, on that lonely cliff-top . . .
'Sweet Jesus!' he whispered. 'Forgive me.'
Cormac made his way through the scattered huts to the smithy where Kern was hammering the blade of a plough. The boy waited until the sweating smith dunked the hot metal into the trough and then approached him.
'You have work for me?' he asked. The bald thickset Kern wiped his hands on his leather apron.
'Not today.'
'I could fetch wood?'
'I said not today,' snapped the smith. 'Now begone!'
Cormac swallowed hard. 'I could clean the storeroom.'
Kern's hand flashed for the boy's head, but Cormac swayed aside causing the smith to stumble. 'I am sorry, master Kern,' he said, standing stockstill for the angry blow that smacked into his ear.
'Get out! And don't come back tomorrow.'
Cormac walked, stiff-backed , from the smithy and only out of sight of the building did he spit the blood from his mouth. He was hungry and he was alone. All around him he could see evidence of families - mothers and toddlers, young children playing with brothers and sisters, fathers teaching sons to ride.
The potter had no work for him either, nor the baker, nor the tanner. The widow, Althwynne, loaned him a hatchet and he chopped wood for most of the afternoon, for which she gave him some pie and a sour apple. But she did not allow him into her home, nor smile, nor speak more than a few words. In all of his fourteen years Cormac Daemonsson had seen the homes of none of the villagers. He had long grown used to people making the sign of the Protective Horn when he approached, and to the fact that only Grysstha would meet his eyes. But then Grysstha was different ... He was a man, a true man who feared no evil. A man who could see a boy and not a demon's son. And Grysstha alone had talked to Cormac of the strange day almost fifteen years before when he and a group of hunters entered the Cave of Sol Invictus to find a great black hound lying alongside four squealing pups - and beside them a flame-haired babe still wet from birth. The hound attacked the hunters and was slain along with the pups, but no man among the saxons cared to kill the babe, for they knew he was sired by a demon and none wanted to earn the hatred of the pit-dwellers.
Grysstha had carried the child from the Cave and found a milk-nurse for him from among the captured British women. But after four months she had suddenly died and then no one would touch the child. Grysstha had taken him into his own hut and fed him with cow's milk through a needle pierced leather glove.
The babe had even been the subject of a Council meeting, where a vote was taken as to whether he lived or died. Only Calder's casting vote saved young Cormac - and that was given after a special plea from Grysstha.
For seven years the boy lived with the old warrior, but Grysstha's disability meant that he could not earn enough to feed them both and the child was forced to scavenge in the village for extra food.
At thirteen, Cormac realised that his association with the crippled warrior had caused Grysstha to become an outcast and he built his own hut away from the village. It was a meagre dwelling with no furniture save a cot-bed and Cormac spent little time there except in winter, when he shivered despite the fire and dreamed cold dreams.
That night, as always, Grysstha stopped at his hut and banged on the door-post. Cormac called him in, offering him a cup of water. The old man accepted graciously, sitting cross-legged on the hard-packed dirt floor.
'You need another shirt, Cormac, you have outgrown that. And those leggings will soon climb to your knees.'
'They will last the Summer.'
'We'll see. Did you eat today?'
'Althwynne gave me some pie - I chopped wood for her.'
'I heard Kern cracked your head?'
'Yes.'
"There was a time when I would have killed him for that. Now, if I struck him, I would only break my good hand.'
'It was nothing, Grysstha. How went your day?'
"The goats and I had a wonderful time. I told them of my campaigns and they told me of theirs. They became bored long before I did!'
'You are never tiresome,' said Cormac. 'You are a wonderful storyteller.'
Tell me that when you've listened to another story-teller. It is easy to be the King when no one else lives in your land.'
'I heard a saga poet once. I sat outside Calder's Hall and listened to Patrisson sing of the Great Betrayal.'
'You must not mention that to anyone, Cormac. It is a forbidden song - and death to sing it.' The old man leaned back against the wall of the hut and smiled. 'But he sang it well, did he not?'
'Did the Blood King really have a grandfather who was a god?'
'All kings are sired by gods - or so they would have us believe. Of Uther I know not. I only know his wife was caught with her lover, that both fled and he hunted them. Whether he found them and cut them to pieces as the song says, or whether they escaped, I do not know. I spoke to Patrisson, and he did not know either. But he did say that the Queen ran off with the King's grandfather, which sounds like a merry mismatch.'
'Why has the King not taken another wife?'
СIТll ask him the next time he invites me to supper.'
'But he has no heir. Will there not be a war if he dies now?'
'There will be a war anyway, Cormac. The King has reigned for twenty-five years and has never known peace . . . uprisings, invasions, betrayals. His wife was not the first to betray him. The Brigantes rose again sixteen years ago and Uther crushed them at Trimontium. Then the Ordovice swept east and Uther destroyed their army at Viriconium. Lastly the Jutes, two years ago. They had a treaty like ours and they broke it; Uther kept his promise and had every man, woman and child put to death.'
'Even children?' whispered Cormac.
'All of them. He is a hard, canny man. Few will rise against him now.'
'Would you like some more water?'
'No, I must be getting to my bed. There will be rain tomorrow - I can feel it in my stump - and I'll need my rest if I'm to sit shivering.'
'One question, Grysstha?'
'Ask it.'