"Laurell K. Hamilton - Meredith Gentry 5 - Mistral's Kiss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

A robed figure was beside me on the hill, but it was not the grey-robed figure of the crone Goddess in
winter. This was a male figure taller than I, broad of shoulder, and cloaked in a hood as black as the boar
that was growing small in the distance.

He held out his hands, and in them was a horn. The curved tusk of a great boar. It was white and fresh,
with blood still on it, as if he had just that moment cut it from the white boar. But as I moved over toward
him, the horn became clean and polished, as if with many years of use, as if many hands had touched it.
The horn was no longer white, but a rich amber color that spoke of age. Just before I touched his hands,
I realized the horn was set in gold, formed into a cup.

I laid my hands on either side of his and found that his hands were as dark as his cloak, but I knew this
was not my Doyle, my Darkness. This was the God. I looked up into his hood and saw for an instant the
boarтАЩs head; then I saw a human mouth that smiled at me. His face, like the face of the Goddess, was
covered in shadowтАФfor the face of deity was ever a mystery.

He wrapped my hands around the smooth horn of the cup, the carved gold almost soft under my fingers.
He pressed my hands to the cup. I wondered, where had the white knife gone?
A deep voice that was no manтАЩs voice and every manтАЩs voice said, тАЬWhere it belongs.тАЭ The knife
appeared in the cup, blade-down, and it was shining again, as if a star had fallen into that cup of horn and
gold. тАЬDrink and be merry.тАЭ He laughed then at his own pun. He raised the shining cup to my lips and
vanished to the warm sound of his own laughter.

I drank from the horn and found it full of the sweetest mead I had ever drunk, thick with honey, and
warm as if the heat of the summer itself slipped across my tongue, caressed my throat. I swallowed and it
was more intoxicating than any mere drink.

Power is the most intoxicating drink of all.



CHAPTER 2

I WOKE SURROUNDED BY A CIRCLE OF FACES, IN A BED THAT WAS not mine. Faces the
color of darkest night, whitest snow, the pale green of new leaves, the gold of summer sunshine, the
brown of leaves trodden underfoot destined to be rich earth. But there was no pale skin that held all the
colors of a brilliant crystal, like a diamond carved into flesh. I blinked up at all of them, and
wonderedтАФremembering my dreamтАФwhere were the cookies?

DoyleтАЩs voice, deep and thick, as if it came from a great distance, said, тАЬPrincess Meredith, are you
well?тАЭ

I sat up, nude in the bed with black silk sheets, cold against my skin. The queen had loaned us her room
for the night. Real fur, soft and nearly alive, pressed against my hip. The fur covering moved, and KittoтАЩs
face blinked up at me. His huge blue eyes dominated his pale face and held no white in all that color. The
color was Seelie sidhe, but the eyes themselves were goblin. He had been a child of the last great
goblinтАУsidhe war. His pale perfect body was barely four feet tall, a delicate man, the only one of my men
who was shorter than I was. He looked child-like cuddled down in the fur, his face framed like some
cherub for a ValentineтАЩs Day card. He had been more than a thousand years old before Christianity was
a word. HeтАЩd been part of my treaty with the goblins. They were my allies because he shared my bed.