"Katherine Kurtz & Scott MacMillan - Knights of the Blood 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

might as well catch your flight. No sense wasting the ticket. Just don't be
gone too long. I'm an old man, and I'll miss you. And theyтАФ"
He glanced again at the knights at the other end of the room, then
shook his head and returned his gaze to the dying embers.
"Why don't you turn in, John? I'll see you in the morning before you
leave. And I'llтАФspeak with de Beq."

The next morning, after Father Freise had celebrated Mass for them, de
Beq and half a dozen of his men turned out to escort Drummond to the
small clearing in the woods where Father Freise had parked Drummond's
rented Mercedes after the battle with Kluge. Four of the six were knights,
now wearing the formal red surcoats of the Order of the Sword under
their white mantles, chain mail showing from under sleeves, swords
belted at their waists. The two men-at-arms carried crossbows and kept a
wary eye out as they brought up the rear of the little procession. The
escort seemed small to Drummond, but in fact it represented about a third
of the castles remaining force. He had thought there were more when he
first arrived at the castle, but some had fallen to Kluge and his men, and
he assumed that the rest of de Beq's men were too busy with other tasks to
see him off.
The walk through the woods to the car was particularly silent, with
neither de Beq nor Father Freise really having anything to say. Even
William of Etton, whom Drummond had found to be the most talkative of
all the knights, was silent as they made their way across the meadow and
through the forest. Finally they arrived at the white Mercedes, and as
Drummond tossed his bag in the trunk, de Beq stepped forward.
"Sir John," he said without preamble, "I know not if you are truly one
of us, but this I do know. You are a knight, made so at your desire and by
my hand before this company and before God Almighty."
Drummond felt a chill creep up his spine at de Beq's words.
"Further," de Beq continued, "you are now about to leave us, and we
know not if ever you will return." He signaled William of Etton, who
came forward with something long and narrow, wrapped in a white cloth.
"So, to protect yourself until you can rejoin your brother knightsтАФ" he
stared Drummond square in the eye" тАФI give you thisтАФmy sword." From
under the cloth, William produced a beautifully wrought sword in a dark
red scabbard set with gilded mounts, which de Beq took almost reverently
from him and held out across both his palms. "I give you this sword, as
one knight to another, and I charge you to return it within a year, or die in
the attempt."
He stepped forward and laid the sword across Drummond's hands. Its
touch seemed to send an electric shock tingling through Drummond's
body, a connection across seven centuries of tradition maintained by the
owner of the sword. Never had anything moved Drummond the way de
Beq's simple speech moved him. Even more profoundly than at the
moment of his knighting, itself so mystical, he now realized that he was
bound to the Order of the SwordтАФthat he was one of them, spiritually, if
not physically.
Maybe this is how the transformation begins, he thought.
Spontaneously he brought the cross-hilt of the sword to his lips in