"Barbara Hambly - Darwath 5 - Icefalcons Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

them the veil that had been part of her trousseau, pale-green silk that fell past her hips. "I know what
Lady Sketh wants."
Generally when Lord Sketh asked for an audience it was Lady Sketh's idea.
"We haven't even asked their intention," declared the tall, pearshaped man, folding his hands before the
worked silver buckle of his belt. "We've made ourselves prisoners here, living like jailbirds, for nearly a
week now, when the matter may be one that can be adjusted by compromise."
"Two siege engines," Minalde pointed out in her low sweet voice, "and eleven hundred men marching
fully armed up the pass does not bear the appearance of compromise to me." In the cool white splendor
of the glowstones that hung from wire baskets in her small conference room, she looked worse, thin and
stretched, dark smudges under her eyes.
"Had they wished to parley at any time in the past week, a man could have come to the steps of the
Keep and knocked on the doors. Ilae?"
She turned to the wizard in the low chair to her left. Ilae looked older, and more queenly, with her red
hair braided up into a crown on her head. Maia, erstwhile Bishop of Penambra and now head of the
Church in the Keep, sat at Alde's right, the position of honor.
Minalde had embroidered his formal tabard, too, as a gift on his forty-second birthday last year. The
carved black chair in which Tir usually sat during his mother's audiences had been taken away.
"In my scrying crystal I see them, my Lady," said the girl, and touched the ruby tucked in the palm of her
left hand. "Men with drawn swords stand guard on either side of the Keep doors. Master Wend tells me
there've been fights, too, 'twixt their men and Yar's archers, and yestere'en they tried to ambush those as
had tried again to get through the pass."
"Well, naturally there's been fighting," said Enas Barrelstave, who had accompanied Lord Sketh to his
audience. Barrelstave was one of the wealthiest commoners in the Keep, and something of a demagogue
as well.
"We meet them with a rain of arrows; our hunters are shooting at whoever gets too far from the main
camp. We assumed from the beginning that their intentions were ill."
He glanced accusingly at Janus, on one side of the door that led to Alde's private chambers. Gil guarded
the other, their black surcoats a silent reminder of the Guards' support. "Of course they're expecting
more trouble."
"The least you can do, my Lady," said Sketh, "is arrange a parley."
"No."
"May I remind your Ladyship," said Barrelstave, "with all due respect, that perhaps his young Lordship
might have a different opinion were he here to disagree?"
Cheap shot, thought Gil, angry at the not too tactful reminder that Minalde, as regent for Tir, was now
nothing more than the widow of the last King, seven years dead. Without Tir, her official position was
considerably weakened. I'll remember that later, pal.
Alde's jaw tightened for a moment, then she said in a pleasant, conversational tone, "Very well. Would
you, Lord Sketh, or you, Master Barrelstave, like to be the one who goes outside?"
The two men looked at each other, having quite clearly envisioned someone of lesser status in the role of
messenger. Still, Gil had to give them credit: faced with Put up or shut up, both volunteered, and Lord
Sketh, who knew some of the ha'al tongue, was given the job.
Janus picked Melantrys as Doorkeeper for the operation. She could catch flies in her hands and had
been shot at enough by bandits that whizzing arrows wouldn't bother her. Gil, Minalde, and Ilae stood
just inside the inner set of Keep Doors, backed up by a sizable contingent of Guards, swords drawn and
ready.
Ilae wrought two small fire-spells, placing them just between the armed warriors standing at the outer
Doors-not easy to do, working at a distance with a scrying stone. The Alketch guards clearly knew there
were mages in the Keep because they ran at the first flicker of flame between them.
Ilae, tongue between her teeth with concentration, put a second burst of sparks a little lower down the
steps to get them to keep their distance, but whoever was in charge of the Alketch troops had evidently