"David Gemmell - Druss 01 - Druss the Legend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

'I am not my grandfather. I am not a murderer.'
Bress sighed. 'I had hoped that Rowena, with all her
gentleness, would have helped to calm that temper of yours. But on the morning
after your wedding you half-kill a fellow settler. And for what? Don't tell me
he spoke slightingly. All he said was that you were a lucky man and he'd like
to have bedded her himself. By all the gods, son! If you feel you have to
break a man's jaw for every compliment he pays your wife, there won't be any
men left in this village to work at all.'
'It wasn't said as a compliment. And I can control my
temper, but Alarin is a loud-mouthed braggart - and he received exactly what
he deserved.'
'I hope you'll take note of what I've said, son.'
Bress stood and stretched his back. 'I know you have little respect for me.
But I hope you'll think of how Rowena would fare if you were both declared
outcast.'
Druss gazed up at him and swallowed back his
disappointment. Bress was a physical giant, stronger than any man Druss had
ever known, but he wore defeat like a cloak. The younger man rose alongside
his father.
'I'll take heed,' he said.
Bress smiled wearily. 'I have to get back to the wall.
It should be finished in another three days; we'll all sleep sounder then.'
'You'll have the timber,' Druss promised.
'You're a good man with an axe, I'll say that.' Bress
walked away for several paces, then turned. 'If they did cast you out, son,
you wouldn't be alone. I'd walk with you.'
Druss nodded. 'It won't come to that. I've already
promised Rowena I'll mend my ways.'
'I'll wager she was angry,' said Bress, with a grin.
'Worse. She was disappointed in me.' Druss chuckled.
'Sharper than a serpent's tooth is the disappointment of a new wife.'
'You should laugh more often, my boy. It suits you.'
But as Bress walked away the smile faded from the
young man's face as he gazed down at his bruised knuckles and remembered the
emotions that had surged within him as he struck Alarin. There had been anger,
and a savage need for combat. But when his fist landed and Alarin toppled
there had been only one sensation, brief and indescribably powerful.
Joy. Pure pleasure, of a kind and a power he had not
experienced before. He closed his eyes, forcing the scene from his mind.
'I am not my grandfather,' he told himself. 'I am not
insane.' That night he repeated the words to Rowena as they lay in the broad
bed Bress had fashioned for a wedding gift.
Rolling to her stomach she leaned on his chest, her
long hair feeling like silk upon his massive shoulder. 'Of course you are not
insane, my love,' she assured him. 'You are one of the gentlest men I've
known.'
That's not how they see me,' he told her, reaching up
and stroking her hair.
 'I know. It was wrong of you to break Alarin's jaw.
They were just words - and it matters not a whit if he meant them