"Paul Kearney - Monarchies of God 4 - The Second Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kearney Paul)

The year 551 had ended, and another chapter in NormanniaтАЩs turbulent history was about to be written.
Over the horizon, Richard HawkwoodтАЩs battered ship was making its tortured voyage home at last,
bearing news of the terrible New World that was stirring in the West.
PROLOGUE
T HE makeshift tiller bucked under their hands, bruising ribs. Hawkwood gripped it tighter to his sore
chest along with the others, teeth set, his mind a flare of foul cursesтАФa helpless fury which damned the
wind, the ship, the sea itself, and the vast, uncaring world upon which they raced in mad career.

The wind backed a pointтАФhe could feel it spike into his right ear, heavy with chill rain. He unclenched his
jaws long enough to shriek forward over the lashing gale.

тАЬBrace the yardsтАФitтАЩs backing round. Brace around that mainyard, God rot you!тАЭ

Other men appeared on the wave-swept deck, tottering out of their hiding places and staggering across
the plunging waist of the carrack. They were in rags, some looking as though they might once have been
soldiers, with the wreck of military uniforms still flapping around their torsos. They were clumsy and
torpid in the bitter soaking spindrift, and looked as though they belonged in a sick-bed rather than on the
deck of a storm-tossed ship.

From the depths of the pitching vessel a terrible growling roar echoed up, rising above the thrumming
cacophony of the wind and the rageing waves and the groaning rigging. It sounded like some huge, caged
beast venting its viciousness upon the world. The men on deck paused in their manipulation of the sodden
rigging, and some made the Sign of the Saint. For a second sheer terror shone through the exhaustion that
dulled their eyes. Then they went back to their work. The men at the stern felt the heavings of the tiller
ease a trifle as the yards were braced around to meet the changing wind. They had it abaft the larboard
beam now, and the carrack was powering forward like a horse breasting deep snow. She was sailing
under a reefed mainsail, no more. The rest of her canvass billowed in strips from the yards, and where
the mizzen-topmast had once been was only a splintered stump with the rags of shrouds flapping about it
in black skeins.

Not so very far now, Hawkwood thought, and he turned to his three companions.

тАЬSheтАЩll go easier now the windтАЩs on the quarter.тАЭ He had to shout to be heard over the storm. тАЬBut keep
her thus. If it strengthens weтАЩll have to run before it and be damned to navigation.тАЭ

One of the men at the helm with him was a tall, lean, white-faced fellow with a terrible scar that distorted
one side of his forehead and temple. The remnants of riding leathers clung to his back.

тАЬWe were damned long ago, Hawkwood, and our enterprise with us. Better to give it up and let her sink
with that abomination chained in the hold.тАЭ

тАЬHeтАЩs my friend, Murad,тАЭ Hawkwood spat at him. тАЬAnd we are almost home.тАЭ

тАЬAlmost home indeed! What will you do with him when we get there, make a watchdog of him?тАЭ

тАЬHe saved our lives before nowтАФтАЭ

тАЬOnly because heтАЩs in league with those monsters from the west.тАЭ

тАЬтАФAnd his master, Golophin, will be able to cure him.тАЭ