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

Lady Ylaena, truly I didn't.' She began to sob, the words bursting in little spurts. 'They said they'd kill my
baby. Don't let them kill my baby. I didn't want to. Don't let them kill my baby. I swear it, they made me
do all those things. I can't do it any more, you're too good and kind, but please by the Goddess herself,
don't let them kill my baby.'

Dwaen felt that he'd turned into an oak and put down roots. So this was their terrible traitor! Jill knelt
down next to her and put an arm round her shoulders.

'You met a man places and gave him information, didn't you? Who was he?'

'I don't know. One of Lord Beryn's riders. He came to the dun just as I got kicked out of it. I met him in
town or down by the river. Everyone thought I had another man. You heard them, Jill, you heard them
call me a slut.'

'Of course. What do you think made me wonder about you? Now here, when do you meet him again?'

'On the morrow, but I won't go. Oh, Goddess, Goddess, Goddess, don't let them kill my baby.'

'No one's going to harm him, because if his grace gives me permission, I'm riding tonight to fetch him.тАЩ

'His grace will give you an escort of twenty men to make sure you bring him home safely,' Dwaen said.
'I'd go myself except I doubt that your Rhodry will let me.'

'His grace is ever so correct.' Rhodry bowed in his direction. 'Not at night, Your Grace, when it's easy
for accidents to happen.'

The farm where Vyna's son was in fosterage was twelve miles away on the edge of Lord Beryn's lands.
As the warband alternately trotted and walked their horses down the dark road, Jill was praying that the
baby would still be there. It was possible that Beryn's men had taken the child hostage just to make sure
that its mother stayed under their control. Of course it was also possible that they had no intention of ever
harming the baby but had merely counted on a young and ignorant lass believing that they would. Finally,
after a long three hours and a last few minutes of confusion at a dark and unmarked crossroads, the
warband found the farm. As they rode up, dogs began barking hysterically inside the earthen wall that
surrounded the steading. When Lallyc pounded on the gate and shouted, in the tieryn's name, a crack of
light appeared around a shuttered window. After a short while, an old man came out with a tin lantern in
his hand. Lallyc leaned down from his saddle.

'Do you have a baby here in fosterage for a lass named Vyna?'

'We do, sir, we do at that. What's all this?'

'We've come to fetch him to his mother in the tieryn's name. Do you recognize the blazons on my shirt?
You do? Splendid. Now go get the child, and wrap him in a blanket or suchlike, too.'

At the head of the line fill waited beside the captain. She could hear the old man shouting inside the
farmhouse, and a woman yelling in anger. Finally a youngish woman with a dirty, torn cloak thrown over
her nightdress ran out to the gate.

'Who are you?' she snarled. 'How do I know you won't hurt the child?'