"Gray, Julia - Guardian 01 - The Dark Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

For the next two years Elam had languished in a cold, damp cell in the lower reaches of the house, his limbs chained to the walls. His once lithe muscles had atrophied, and his joints had become stiff and painful. The appointment of a new Head Warden - who held slightly more enlightened views about heretical behaviour - meant that Elam was eventually released from this barbaric torment, but by then the damage was done. Although he had slowly regained some of his former strength, cold weather or any form of strenuous exercise brought the pain back, so that he often moved like an old man. When Elam and Terrel had first met, each had thought the other to be mocking his own graceless movements, and they had fought as enemies. Gradually, however, as they learnt the truth, they realized that they had much in common. Their eventual friendship was all the more devoted because of its troubled beginnings. Now, three years later, they were like brothers.
'How many more after this one?' Elam asked as they cleared the last of the soiled straw from the stall.
'Three.'
Elam swore softly, but with feeling. There were usually only a few horses kept in the stables. Most of the staff who did not live in the house walked to work across the moor that surrounded the estate. None of them could have afforded their own mounts anyway. But in the last few days there had been many more visitors than usual, and their animals required temporary lodgings. Neither Terrel nor Elam knew who the outsiders had come to see.
'We never get any visitors,' Elam muttered, 'but we still have to clean up after them!'
One of the things the two boys had in common was that they had both been abandoned by their respective families. Terrel had never known his, while Elam's had not lifted a finger to help him since his arrest. In truth there was little that they could have done, but they had not even tried to contact him and his resentment was simmering still. His bitterness was compounded by guilt, partly at having allowed himself to get caught, and partly because he had no idea what had happened to his family since his incarceration. For all he knew they might all be dead; in his darkest moods, he almost wished they were.
'No one would ever want to come here from choice,' Terrel pointed out. 'They're too afraid of us lunatics.'
'Hah! I sometimes think it'd be better if we were mad,' Elam grated. 'They don't make Old Timi shovel shit, do they?'
Old Timi was one of the most ancient residents of Havenmoon. He had been there for decades, and his peculiarities were legendary. He claimed to receive messages from other worlds every time he touched a green leaf or a blade of grass. He would refuse to eat any meal until some of the food had been smeared on each wall of the room - which did not endear him to the cleaning details - and at every full Red Moon he howled like a- wolf and tried to bite anyone who came too close. As he had no teeth left, he was no real danger, but he could make a nuisance of himself nonetheless.
Terrel shuddered at the thought of ending up like Old Timi, even though he knew Elam was not serious, and then banged his spade on the ground as another wave of anger swept over him. He and Elam were quite clearly sane - a fact that was tacitly acknowledged by Ziolka, the Head Warden, in the relative freedom he allowed them - so why should they remain incarcerated in this dreadful place? But Terrel was under no illusions that whoever had discarded him as a baby fourteen years ago would return for him now. He was not even sure he would want them to.
Two of the three remaining stalls were still occupied, which meant spreading clean straw in new pens and then swapping the mounts over. Terrel left this task to Elam because his friend was indifferent to horses, having been used to farm animals in his earlier life. Terrel disliked horses, who grew nervous and fretful if he came too close. He saw madness in their eyes - and, ironically, they probably saw something similar in his. Alyssa was the only one who was quite at home with them. She never rode, but could calm even the most fiery colt simply by talking to it or stroking its neck. Although he was still smarting over the trick she had played on him that morning, Terrel wished that she were there now.
As the two boys went back to work, the warden who had been watching over them went off duty and was replaced by another. The stables were always guarded, even though the only way out of the estate with a horse was via the drawbridge over the moat and then through the only gate in the wall. Because this was normally kept locked, and the gatekeepers kept a constant watch there, such an escape was impossible - but nonetheless a close eye was always kept on any horses in the stables. The new man, whose name was Ingo, strolled over now, a broad grin on his face.
'Put your backs into it, lads. Got to have the place looking spick-and-span for tomorrow.'
'You could always lend us a hand,' Elam suggested caustically.
'I'd be glad to,' the warden replied, 'but I'm on duty. Sorry about that.'
'Ha ha.'
'What's happening tomorrow?' Terrel asked.
'Some inspectors are coming,' Ingo informed them. 'From Makhaya. There'll be changes around here before too long, you mark my words.'
'Yeah, well, when they make you Head Warden, don't forget to put in a good word for me,' Elam remarked sarcastically.
'Have this lot carted away by the end of my watch, and I might just do that.' Ingo wandered off again, whistling.
'That self-important clod has as much chance of becoming Head Warden as I do of being made Emperor,' Elam commented when Ingo was out of hearing. 'I've a good mind to bury him in a dung heap.'
'And what good will that do?'
'It'll make me feel better. Come on, I want to get this finished. For my sake, not his.'
Elam was still moaning as they struggled to complete the last stage of their task. Because neither of them had been able to face the thought of an extra journey, they had piled the handcart too high, making it even more cumbersome than usual and difficult to manoeuvre. Even with Elam pulling and Terrel pushing, their progress was agonizingly slow as they circled round the main house to the south. Going to the north would have been a much shorter route, albeit still circuitous, but it would have meant traversing the lower slopes of the small hill which was topped by the Necropolis - and the appalling prospect of the cart toppling over sideways.
'You'd have thought the people who built this place would've had the sense to put the stables and the kitchen gardens close to each other,' Elam grumbled breathlessly. 'Not on opposite sides of the house!'
The mansion had once been the home of a long-extinct noble family. When their line had ended, the Havenmoon Estate would have fallen into ruin had it not been for the need for a remote place to hide away the province's lunatics. Even the name had suggested such a use.
Havenmoon remained its official title - though the local people had other, more colourful names for the place - but in common parlance, and with an unconscious irony, the house was generally referred to as 'the haven'. The building's aristocratic past was all but forgotten now, but it was this that accounted for many of its eccentric features. Terrel knew its secrets better than most; he had spent his entire life there, after all. There were few rooms or corridors he had not visited at one time or another and - more importantly - he knew where not to go. Some of the dungeon cells, which had once been wine cellars, held sights he had no wish to see.
'I expect they didn't think of things like that,' he said now. 'That's what servants were for.'
'Slaves like us, you mean. Look out!'
They both winced as one of the cart's wheels struck a rut, and they had to move quickly to prevent it tipping over. Elam's litany of grievances continued, his increasingly fertile invective being directed at their task, the cart, the pain in his knees, the weather, fate in general, and even his own family.
'At least you had a family once,' Terrel said. His friend's embittered mood had infected him now, and he too was brooding. 'My parents didn't even keep me long enough to give me a name!'
Terrel's name had been the choice of the wet nurse, a young woman from a nearby village who had been paid to come to the madhouse and tend to him after her own baby died. In the old tongue of the region, his name meant 'light of the new moon', and - even though the moons had all been full on the night of his birth - it seemed eerily appropriate to anyone who looked into the child's uncanny eyes. The wet nurse had been paid for her services out of the 'donation' left with the baby - the anonymous blood money that the warden had accepted on the assumption that the infant was simply one more inconvenient offspring of a well-to-do family. When Terrel arrived, no one had believed that he would live more than a few weeks, but he had proved them wrong. The human spirit ran strongly inside his twisted shell.
'Fate didn't deal either of us a particularly good hand, did it,' Elam muttered.
'I'm not sure we were given any cards at all,' Terrel replied sourly. 'Sometimes I hate the world so much I wish I could destroy it all.'
Their black mood lasted until the last of the manure had finally been offloaded at the vegetable garden. Then, because there was still more than an hour before sunset, they were free to please themselves for a while, a privilege that marked them out as luckier than most inmates. Their depression began to lift as, without the need for any discussion, they set off back round the house, making for the lake that lay in the eastern part of the grounds. The heat of the day was still considerable, making the lure of the water irresistible. In spite of their weariness and aching limbs, the boys' pace quickened as they crossed the path that led from the haven's main entrance to the gate at the southernmost point of the wall. From then on the land sloped gently down to the lake, whose edges were clogged with reeds and lily pads. Swimming would have been difficult if it had not been for an old wooden jetty, which had once been used for boating, and which still led out to relatively clear water.
'What's she doing here?' Elam asked. 'She doesn't even like the water.'
Even from a distance, the figure sitting at the end of the small pier was easily recognized. Alyssa had her thin arms wrapped around her knees, which were drawn up in front of her. She was staring out over the lake.
'Waiting for us, I guess,' Terrel said.
'Let's sneak up on her and push her in.'
'No!' Even though he was fairly sure that Elam wasn't serious, the very idea filled Terrel with horror. Alyssa always refused to go in the water, no matter how hot the day. She would never explain why.
'All right, all right,' Elam said, looking disgusted. 'I didn't mean it.'
It took Terrel longer than Elam to remove his filthy outer garments, because of the special boot that had been made to fit his crooked right foot. The boot's slanting sole was much thicker at the toe, and the long laces - which were tied well above his ankle - had to be fully loosened before the difficult job of pulling it off could begin. As a result Elam was already in the lake, having run past the unsuspecting Alyssa and dived in, by the time Terrel limped to the end of the jetty.
'Did he splash you?' he asked.
'Not really,' she replied, smiling.
'Made you jump though, didn't I!' Elam called, sounding very pleased with himself.
Alyssa stuck her tongue out at him.
Terrel slipped into the water, delighting in the sudden coolness on his grimy skin, and paddled out to join Elam. The lake was always cold, even in summer, and there were supposed to be fish in its murky depths, but Terrel had never seen any. Neither of the boys was a strong swimmer. Because of the weakness of his whole right side, Terrel would go round in circles unless he concentrated, and though Elam made dogged progress, the chill usually affected his joints before long. Terrel suspected that, if it hadn't been for her aversion to water, Alyssa would have been a better swimmer than either of them. After all - and much to their chagrin - she could easily outrun them both, and was so light that she would probably float easily.
'I think I'll swim to the island,' Elam stated boldly. 'Are you coming?'
'No. It's too far for me.'
The tiny island lay towards the northern end of the pear-shaped lake. Long ago, a small round tower - a nobleman's folly - had been built there, but now it was just a crumbling ruin, surrounded by spindly trees. It looked a peaceful enough place, though there were several quite gruesome legends connected with the island.