"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 06 - A Time Of Omens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

great hall. At the little door she froze. If Nevyn hadnтАЩt been right behind her, she would have turned and
bolted again.

тАЬCome now, child, you know youтАЩve got the strength for this. When the priest asks you if youтАЩll take him
as your betrothed, all you have to do is say I will and let him kiss youтАФMaryn, I mean, not the priest.
Kissing Nicedd would give me pause, too.тАЭ

Bellyra managed a giggle, but only just.

When they walked out together onto the dais, men gasped and turned to stare. Everywhere she heard
whispers: Is that the princess? Has to be, couldnтАЩt be, why here we never noticed how beautiful she is.
She would never forget that moment; no matter what happened later in her life, she would always be able
to pull it out of her mind like a jewel out of a treasure chest, the moment when she stepped through the
little door into her womanhood, and the entire great hall fell silent to watch.
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Maryn was sitting at the head of the table of honor, and some servant or other had found a cloak in the
red, silver, and black plaid of Cerrmor to drape his chair, and a shirt embroidered with the ship blazon of
Cerrmor for him to wear, so that when he rose to greet her he was already the king in the eyes of every
man there. He bowed, caught her hand and kissed it, and smiled at her in a way that set her hand shaking
in his.

тАЬMy lady,тАЭ he whispered. тАЬIтАЩm lucky as well as honored that youтАЩre the Princess of the Blood.тАЭ And
then he winked at her, as cheeky as a page.

For an answer she could only smile, the blood hot in her face, and she felt as if she were falling from the
highest tower in all of Dun Cerrmor, falling and falling, down and down into the little garden at its heart,
falling toward yet never reaching the safety of the old willow and the tiny stream. He had conquered her,
ridden in and captured her as well as the men without ever unsheathing his sword, and made her his
prisoner for life. Although she was too young to see it at the time, only a few years later she realized that
her Wyrd had given her an obsessive love that most women would have called a great treasure, but
some, the wise ones, a cancer growing in her heart.



With the summerтАЩs battle season coming on, the priests lost no time in marrying the royal couple and
investing Maryn as king. For a solid week both the dun and the entire city were given over to splendid
festivities: mock combats, feasts, bardic competitions, guild parades, more feasts, regattas out on the
harbor and dancing in the city squares. Wherever the new king went, the silver daggers went, too, as his
personal guard of honor, all decked out in ship-blazoned shirts and red cloaks as a mark of their sudden
status. Since the king had to attend every festivity, even if he could only stay for a little while, the troop
sailed through those warm spring days on a drunken tide of laughter. Through the lot of them Maddyn
wandered like a haunt, never smiling, talking only rarely, occasionally snarling at Branoic, who followed
him everywhere, and then just as suddenly apologizing again. Yet even in his grief-shot rage he saw
himself clearly, knew that part of his pain was the simple and certain knowledge that in time the pain
would disappear, the mourning be over, and Aethan become only a memory kept alive by the death-song
his friend the bard had made about him. In odd moments, when he could snatch a little peace from the