"Katherine Kurtz - Camber 3 - Camber the Heretic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

sustained for several heartbeats, but then the leader of the band brought his
crop up to his cap in salute and bobbed his head in slightly mocking deference.
"Sony, Your Grace, we appear to have made a mistake."
"I'll say you have!" Joram muttered under his breath, starting to sidestep his
horse between Camber's and the leader's.
But Camber's tongue-lashing, plus the discovery of his identity, had
apparently quelled any further desire of the young lords to bully the six they
had met. At their leader's signal, the band crowded past Camber and his escort
with astonishing precision and galloped away on the road back toward Ebor,
quickly disappearing in the growing twilight. Joram and Camber's men made as
though to follow, their outrage written plainly on their faces, but Camber held
up a hand and murmured, "No!"
His men returned obediently and fell in around him, but it was obvious that
they were resentful at being held back. Joram allowed himself a final,
murderous glare in the direction the marauders had disappeared before
sheathing his sword with a vexed snick of steel seating in steel-bound leather.
"Young ruffians!" the priest grumbled, under his breath.
Guthrie, the guard sergeant, was less circumspect.
"How dare they? Just who do they think they are?" he blurted. "Your Grace,
you should have let us go after them!"
"To serve what purpose?" Camber replied. "You are all fine soldiers, but you
were also greatly outnumbered, in strange territory, and at dusk, when all
three factors would have worked against you. Furthermore, they were all
Deryni; and except for Joram, you are not."
 "His Grace is right, Guthrie," Joram reluctantly agreed, "though I, too, would
love to have thrashed them all soundly." He turned to Camber, Michaeline
composure restored as was fitting in the chancellor-bishop's secretary. "Under
the circumstances, Your Grace, do you think it wise to divert to Dolban? The
king should be told of this incident as soon as possible."
Joram's words gave perfect excuse to omit the visit if they choseтАФan option
which both Camber and Joram would have preferred, rather than subject
themselves to the emotional strain of a visit to the principal Camberian shrine;
and Queron Kinevan was the last man that either of them wanted to see, after
their few encounters at the time of Camber's canonizationтАФbut unfortunately,
a similar argument dictated precisely the delay they otherwise might have
avoided. Queron Kinevan, as Abbot of Saint Camber's-at-Dolban, had primary
responsibility for keeping of the King's Peace on the roads surrounding the
abbey lands, and it was he who should be informed of the band of young
Deryni bullies first, even before the king.
Camber reminded them of that, before leading them into a bone-jarring
gallop on along the increasingly dim and icy road. They had not travelled a mile
further toward the Dolban cutoff before they came upon the first signs of their
marauders' earlier exploits.
They slackened pace as the muddy footing of the road changed from fetlock
depth to nearly knee-deep, noting without comment how even the
snow-banked verge beside had been churned to slush by the recent passage of
many horses. As they continued cautiously into the next curve, they checked
before a ragtag assemblage of perhaps a dozen liveried men on foot, though the
men's high boots and mud-fouled spurs gave mute indication that they had not
begun their journey thus.