"Tanya Huff - Crystal 1 - Child of the Grove" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

coffle staked at the work site and placed beneath it. Some screamed, some
sobbed, some lay limp and resigned, pushed beyond terror. The slab dropped,
then the whole process was repeated for the next. The tower was to be the
tallest in the city.
If the men who built it felt anything at all, it was, for the most part,
relief that they were not beneath the stones themselves.
This night, as most nights, the king's counselor watched the construction from
the wooden dais that gave him an unobstructed view of the work. This night,
the king stood beside him, leaning into each death, his

CHILD OF THE GROVE 15
tongue protruding slightly, his breathing ragged and quick.
A new slave was unchained; a young man, well formed, who, in spite of lash
marks striping his back from neck to knees, fought so viciously that four men
were needed to escort him to the stone. He screamed, not in terror but in
defiance.
The king started at the sound and actually saw the slave. His eyes widened and
he clutched at the blue velvet of his counselor's sleeve.
"That looks to be Lord Elan's son. "
"It is. "
"But you can't... "
"He spoke against me, Majesty, and so spoke against you. To speak against the
lawful king is treason. The penalty for treason is death. " The golden-haired
man smiled and removed the king's hand from his arm. "At least this way his
death serves a purpose. Life makes the strongest mortar. "
On the stone, Lord Elan's son strained against invisible bonds, muscles
standing out in sharp relief. He threw back his head and howled as the slab
above him fell.
On the dais, the king swayed and he moaned deep in his throat.
Rael stretched the two-hour ride home from the Grove to nearly four,
dismounting to sit for a time in the moonlight. To his left, waited the shadow
that was the forest. To his right, a ribbon of brown led to the distant lights
of the town that spread like a skirt outside the palace walls. The Lady's
Wood. King's Road, King's Town.
His horse nickered and lipped at his hair, more interested in returning to the
comfort of stable and stall than in philosophy.
Grasping the gelding's mane, Rael pulled himself to his feet, mounted, and
kicked the horse into a trot. He had always known that someday he would be
king. He enjoyed the power and privilege, and even the re-
16 Tanya Huff
responsibilities, of being prince and heir. But sometimes, in the moonlight,
he wished he had a choice.
Hoofs thudded onto packed earth, and Rael turned up the King's Road.
The watch had just called midnight when Rael reached town. Because the King's
City was so close to the center of Ardhan, miles from any invading army and
surrounded on all sides by loyal subjects of the king, it had no wall. The
scattered farms and cottages of the countryside merely moved closer together
along the road until they gave way to the houses, shops and inns of the city.
At the Market Square-well lit even at this hour, for when business in booths
and stalls shut down, business in taverns and wineshops began- Rael turned,