"Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 02 - King Javan's Year" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

Sighing heavily, Javan pulled off the stiff, hooded scapular that was part of the habit of the detested
Custodes Fidei, though long training bade him fold it neatly before dropping it on the parched grass
beside the carp pool. The black soutane he wore as a seminarian fastened at the right shoulder and down
the right side, and he undid enough of the buttons to loosen the standing collar, briefly pulling the opening
away from his neck a few times to puff air inside. Then he hiked the garment┬┤s hem up above his knees
and shifted himself slightly around to the left so he could swing his sandaled left foot up onto the granite
curbing and cradle his knee, idly turning his gaze over his shoulder to the water beside him.
The moonlight mirrored on the water┬┤s surface, reflecting back the clean-lined image of a pale, serious
face surrounded by a close-cut shock of glossy black hair, slightly rumpled from pulling off the scapular.
From this angle, he could not see the clerical tonsure his circumstances forced him to wear and was free
to pretend that he was the layman and prince he longed to be.
In a rare outward declaration of that pretense-though hardly particularly daring, since no one was likely
to see it-he slipped his good left foot out of its sandal and nudged the offending item off the side of the
granite curbing, then slid that foot into the water as he bent to unfasten and remove the special boot that
supported his misshapen right foot. He smiled as he flexed the toes in newfound freedom, briefly
massaging the thickened ankle before shifting around to ease it into the water beside the other.
The mud on the bottom was squishy and cool, and his smile turned to a grin. At sixteen, the occasional
stolen pleasures of an all-too-brief childhood still held their own allure, to be relished between the more
serious aspects of surviving as a superfluous prince.
And survival was the name of the game. In the nearly three years since placing himself under the
obedience of the Custodes, Prince Javan Haldane had learned survival skills far beyond the mere
academics expected of the future priest and ecclesiastic they were trying to make of him. Along with the
dutiful assimilation of cloistered life and the round of devotions that marked every hour of the abbey┬┤s
calendar, he had also learned the subtler arts of dissembling and subterfuge.
He had learned to keep his own counsel, and to watch and listen far more than he spoke. By seeming to
go along with the program of spiritual direction and study mapped out by Archbishop Hubert and the
other men who had been the royal regents when it all began, and who now continued as his brother┬┤s
ministers of state, Javan had gained their guarded approval of his apparent piety, a grudging respect for
his academic achievements, and even a degree of freedom to return occasionally to Court-though he was
careful to hide the true extent of his accomplishments, and especially not to reveal any hint of the
Deryni-like powers stirring ever more deeply within him. Hubert himself, though he did not know it, had
felt subtle touches of Javan┬┤s influence from time to time-though if Javan chose to exercise that influence
to the extent that Hubert began to act out of character, the discovery of Javan┬┤s part in it was almost
inevitable and almost certainly would cost him his life.
And if Javan himself were not found out, then the blame was sure to fasten on one or more of the few
Deryni still at court-the тАЬDeryni sniffers,тАЩ as they were sometimes called in derision, or the great lords┬┤
тАЬpetтАЩ Deryni. According to the provisions of the Statutes of Ramos, enacted shortly after the death of
Javan┬┤s father, Deryni were officially prohibited from holding any office, from teaching, or from
endeavoring to seek out any religious vocation, especially the priesthood. Ownership of property was
being increasingly restricted. In addition, Deryni were forbidden to use their powers in any manner
whatsoever, under pain of death.
The sole exceptions .were those Deryni forcibly recruited to royal service and compelled, by threats to
their families held hostage, to exercise their powers in behalf of the regents, now the principal lords of
state. Not infrequently, their duties required the betrayal of other Deryni, or at least the perversion of their
powers for intimidation. At one time, four or five such men had been the regents┬┤ personal pawns, with
another several dozen attached to various military units.
There were not so many now, for unquestioning obedience was not a characteristic of most Deryni, and
the regents┬┤ answer to any resistance had been the immediate execution of the offender┬┤s family before
his eyes-wives and children, even tiny infants, it made no difference-followed by the offender┬┤s own slow
death by torture. Javan had been forced to witness more than one such outrage, and the memories