"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 08 - A Time Of Justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

All that afternoon, even though he managed to make polite conversation with his guest and his family,
Dwaen brooded. Lord Beryn's lands were only about ten miles to the west, close enough for him to
haunt the edges of the demesne in hope of catching his enemy unaware. Yet he couldn't imagine Beryn
using a bow instead of a sword, and besides, how had the old bastard known exactly when and where
he'd gone to hunt? Not that he and Cadlew had made any secret of their plan - the question was how
Beryn had heard of it, a question that was answered the very same night, when he went up to bed.

Theoretically, now that he'd inherited, Dwaen should have been using his father's formal suite on the floor
just above the great hall, but since he had no desire to move his mother out of her bed, he kept to his
spare, small chamber on the third floor of the broch. When he came in that night, carrying a lantern
himself rather than bothering a page, he saw a lump under the blankets on the narrow bed. He threw the
covers back and found a dead rat, mangled, stabbed over and over to a blood-soaked mess, and stuffed
into a neck wound was the tail feather of a raven.

With an involuntary yell, Dwaen jumped back, the lantern shaking and bobbing to throw wild shadows
on the walls.

'Dwaen?' Cadlew's voice came muffled through the door. 'Are you all right?'

'Not truly. Come in, will you?'

When Cadlew saw the rat, he swore under his breath, then took the poker from the hearth and flipped
the foul thing onto the floor.

'Beryn's got a man in this dun,' Cadlew said.

'Obviously, unless that pedlar who was here this afternoon was actually a spy.'

'Who would have let him come upstairs? Here, on the morrow, I'll send a message home and tell them
that I'm staying at your side.тАЩ

'You've never been more welcome.'

Dwaen gathered up his blankets and went to share Cadlew's chamber, but he lay awake for a long time
after his friend was snoring. Although he'd realized that Beryn would hate him for demanding justice, he'd
never thought the lord would seek such a coward's revenge. But he's got no choice, he thought, because
if he challenges me openly, the gwerbret will intervene. A traitor in his own dun! The thought sickened
him, that one of his own men could be bribed against him. It might only be a servant, of course, but still,
he was forced to realize that from now on, he could trust no one.

The round, thatched farmhouse sat behind a low earthen wall about a hundred yards from the road. Out
in the dusty yard, a man was throwing a bucket of slops to a pair of skinny grey hogs. When Jill and
Rhodry led their horses up to the gate, he lowered the bucket and looked them over narrow-eyed.

'Good morrow,' Rhodry said. 'Would your wife happen to have any extra bread to sell to a traveller?'

'She wouldn't,' he paused to spit on the ground, 'silver dagger.'