"Greg Keyes - Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone 3 - The Blood Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keyes J Gregory)

The girl lowered her azure eyes demurely but did not answer.
"Robert," Muriele said, interrupting the silence, "I am your prisoner and therefore
at your mercy, but I hope I've made it plain that I am not afraid of you. You are a
kinslaughterer, an usurper, and something far worse for which I have no name. I
deem you will not be surprised when I say I do not enjoy your company.
"So if you could please get on with whatever degradation you have planned for
me, I would much appreciate it."
 Robert's smile froze on his face. Then he shrugged and dropped the flower to the
floor.
"The rose is not from me, anyhow," he explained. "Have it as you will. Please
take a seat."
His diffident wave indicated several chairs surrounding a thick oaken table. The
furniture rested on carved talons, in keeping with the monstrous theme of the room,
a little-used chamber hidden deep in the windowless interior of the castle known as
the Waurmsal.
Two large tapestries hung on the walls. One depicted a knight wearing antique
chain mail and a conical helm, wielding an improbably broad and lengthy sword
against a waurm with scales picked in gold, silver, and bronze threads. Rs snakelike
body coiled around the borders of the weaving, flowing toward the center where the
knight stood, and there lifted deadly claws and gaped a mouth filled with iron teeth
dripping venom. So well crafted was the textile that at any moment it seemed as if
the great serpent would slither out of it and onto the floor.
The second tapestry seemed much older. Rs colors were faded, and in places the
fiber appeared worn through. R was woven in a simpler, less realistic style and
portrayed a man standing beside a dead waurm. The figure was so austerely
imagined that she could not be certain it portrayed the same knight, whether he wore
armor or merely a jerkin of odd design. The weapon he held was much more
modest, more a knife than a sword. He had one hand lifted to his mouth.
"You've been in here before?" Robert asked as she reluctantly took a seat.
"Once," she said. "Long ago. William received a lord from Skhadiza here."
"When I discovered this chamberтАФI suppose I was about nineтАФI found it all
dusty," he said, "scarcely fit to sit inтАФand yet so charming."
"Utterly," Muriele said drily, regarding a grotesque reliquary that stood against
one wall. It was mostly wooden, carved somewhat in the form of a man with arms
held outstretched. In each clawed hand he held a gold-plated human skull. Instead of
a Mannish face, he had a snake's head with ram's horns, and his legs were very
short, ending in birdlike claws. His belly was a glass-doored cabinet behind which
she could make out a narrow, slightly curved cone of ivory about the length of her
arm.
"That wasn't here before," she said.
"No," Robert agreed. "I bought that from a Sefry merchant a few years ago. That,
my dear, is the tooth of a waurm."
He said it like a little boy who had found something interesting and expected to be
rewarded with special attention.
When none came, he rolled his eyes and rang a little bell. A maidservant appeared,
bearing a tray. She was a young woman with dark hair and a single pox mark on her
face. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them, and her lips were pressed together so
tightly as to be pallid.
 She set goblets of wine before each of them, left, and then returned with a platter
of sweets: candied pears, butter biscuits, brandied cakes, sweet cheese fritters in