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

With a sigh, he glanced into the chapel. It seemed almost stark compared to
its usual appearance, dark but for the Presence Lamp and a single taper on a
small table in the center of the room. After the servants had finished the
general cleaning, Evaine and Rhys had removed everything except the heavy
altar against the eastern wall and the thick Kheldish carpet which covered the
tile at the foot of the altar steps. This last they had moved to the center of the
chamber, and brought in a smaller one which they spread in the northeast
corner. Then Joram had disappeared through an opening to the left of the altar
which was there and not-there, almost in the blinking of an eye. Evaine and
Alister and Jebediah had continued the preparations.
New, fresh altar cloths and hangings had been laid in place next, the altar
candles replaced with new ones, the sanctuary lamp replenished with oil,
woman and bishop and Michaeline knight performing all these tasks with
reverence and a serenity which seemed to extend even to the doorway where
Cinhil watched. Four candlesticks with colored glass shields in gold and red
and blue and green now stood at the cardinal points of the room, very like
those which had stood guard at his own rite so many years before, though his
had all been white.
He was momentarily startled then by a fully-armed Jebediah brushing past
him, well-burnished mail clinking softly as he moved, the white belt of his
knighthood gleaming against the dark Michaeline blue of surcoat and
great-cloak. He bore Cinhil's sword of state in his gloved hands, the jeweled belt
wrapped loosely around the carved and gem-studded scabbard.
Jebediah nodded respect to the king as he passed, but he did not pause.
Crossing the chapel to where Alister looked up expectantly, he bowed to the
altar's Presence and then knelt to lay the sheathed weapon across Alister's
outstretched palms. Alister bowed over the sword, then laid it on the altar and
began lighting the altar candles with a taper kindled from the Presence Light
itself. After that, he knelt on the altar steps and bowed his grizzled head in
prayer, gnarled hands folded loosely on his knee.
Jebediah, when he had seen the candles lit, bobbed his head in obeisance
once more, then rose and left the chapel as quickly as he had come. Cinhil felt
a pang of loss as the knight disappeared through the outer door. He knew he
would not see Jebediah again.
Small sounds: the chink of metal against glass. In the center of the room,
Evaine was arranging objects on the tableтАФa thurible; a small, footed cup of
white-glazed clay, filled with water; a slender silver dagger which Cinhil
thought he remembered having seen at Evaine's belt on several occasions. Its
metal gleamed in the light of the taper, potent but somehow not sinister.
Underneath the table, though he could not see them for the white cloth
brushing the carpet all around, where Rhys's medical kit, a pair of mismatched
earrings made of twisted gold wire, and three small pieces of parchment already
appropriately inscribed.
These last he had copied out himself this afternoon, his final legacy to those
who must wear the crown after him. The words were not much, but they would
have to suffice. He had nothing else to leave them except life itself, having given
them little more than that. Still, they were his sons, bone of his bone and flesh
of his flesh.
Movement caught his eye in the shadows to his left, and he was startled to
discover an opening which had not been there an eyeblink before. Rhys and