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

have considered such neglect of duty.
"Very well, then, Dom Queron," Camber said quietly. "We may not stay long,
for we have pressing business with the king, but we shall pay our respects. One
favor I would ask, for Joram's sake. May we have some privacy inside the
shrine?"
"Of course, Your Grace," Queron replied with a bow, turning to make a hand
signal to one of his monks. Then he looked long and compassionately at the
younger priest.
"Poor Joram," he murmured. "After all these years, you still cannot accept
his sanctity, can you?"
With difficulty, Joram swallowed, would not meet Queron's Healer's gaze,
and Camber knew he was remembering how he had been forced to face
Queron's questioning in another time and place, when the legend of Saint
Camber had yet to be proven.
"It is very difficult to be the son of a saint, Dom Queron. If only you knew
how difficult."
"ButтАФ"
"Please, Dom Queron," Camber interjected, sensing a long, involved
disputation if he did not get Queron and Joram separated. He laid a comforting
arm around Joram's shoulders and urged him toward the doors. "I'llтАФ see your
people when we come out, and give them my blessing then." That was the
Alister part of him talking.
"For now, though, let's go inside, son," he said, drawing Joram toward the
plain, metal-studded doors.
Very soon they were alone, standing quietly at the rear of the nave with their
backs against the doors and their nostrils filled with warm air and the familiar
scent of incense. Camber heard a door close at the far end of the church and
surmised that it marked the exit of his guards.
For an instant, it was all deceptively familiar. Camber did not know what he
had been expecting. He certainly was not prepared for the sight which met his
eyes. He supposed he had anticipated the usual overdone treatment which was
so often afforded a saint's principal shrine, gaudy and grandiose in taste,
cluttered with candles and statues and other over-pious accoutrements. This
place was not.
For beginnings, the chapel had a somewhat non-standard layout, perhaps
because of its manorial origins. The nave was the usual long and narrow
basilica plan, with a double colonnade running its length and dividing off a
clerestory aisle to either side, like any proper church; but there was no
southern transept. The southern wall, set against the former outside wall of the
manor's living quarters, was windowless and mostly blank, except for a mosaic
design of red and gold surrounding each of the fourteen Stations of the Cross.
The northern wall was quite another story. Several side altars and chapels
had been built into that wall, and there was a transept. As Camber and Joram
began walking slowly down the left clerestory aisle, they passed a circular
baptistry done in mosaic of reeds and doves and flames, a delicate Lady Chapel
of gold and lapis and, in the transept, an altar dedicated to the four great
Archangels, colored lamps burning at the quarters to signify the angelic
protection.
At the end of the nave, in the sanctuary, was the altar guarded by Saint
Camber, the vaguely lit statue of the saint standing to the left of a simple but