"Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 03 - Bastard Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

"They're comin'!" Stacia breathed, pressing hard against the rampart edge as she squinted
against the glare. "Look ye, there's Da's banner!"
Sudrey's breath caught in her throat as she, too, began to make out the battle standard borne
by one of the lead ridersтАФa silver saltire and two golden suns against an azure field.
"MotherтАФI dinnae see Corban's banner," Stacia cried. "Mother, where is't? CorbanтАФ"
She was turning to careen down the turnpike stair before Sudrey could stop her, moaning and
clutching her son fearfully to her shoulder, the wolfhounds lumbering after. Behind her, Sudrey
cast her own anxious gaze over the approaching riders again, now seeing what her daughter had
failed to notice: the dark, irregular shape bound across the saddle of one of the horses nearer
the banner, wrapped round in a greeny tweed cloak that she herself had mended before her husband
rode out, what seemed like an eternity ago.
Later, she would not remember her own numbed descent of the narrow, winding stair; only that,
all at once, she was down in the castle yard with men and horses churning all around her, the din
and the stench of blood and death almost beyond imagining. Across the yard, her son-in-law all but


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tumbled from his spent mount to stagger toward her, one bandaged and bloodstained arm braced
around the shoulders of his weeping but relieved young wife.
He was grimy and exhausted, young Corban, his helmet gone, his sweat-matted black hair mostly
pulled free of its border clout, his leather brigandine showing the signs of heavy battle
survived. As he reached Sudrey, he collapsed to armored knees at her feet, his broad, leather-clad
shoulders heaving with a dry sob as he crushed her to him with his free hand, burying his bearded
face against her skirts.
"Forgive me, I couldnae save him!" he gasped. "They've ta'en CulliecairnтАФGod knows why! We lost
dozens, an' most of those returnin' carry wounds. They lured us wi' a flag o' truce, then o'erran
us. We must get word tae Sighere an' Graham an' beg reinforcementsтАФan' from the king!"
"Is it invasion?" Sudrey heard herself calmly asking.
"I cannae say." Corban raised his head and drew back a little, dark eyes as bleak and empty as
her heart. "They wore the livery o' Prince Miklos of Torenth. It could be one prong of an all-out
invasion. We must see if Sighere's outposts hae seen activity in the Arranal region or along the
coast."
Her mind flicked back at once to a private meeting several months before at Lochalyn: herself,
Hrorik, and the strikingly handsome Prince MiklosтАФwho was technically a distant cousinтАФand
another, slightly younger man, as dark as Miklos was fair, then presumed merely to be the prince's
aide. Hrorik had reluctantly encouraged the meeting, not out of any love for Torenth but in hopes
of putting to rest nearly seven years' worth of letters sent periodically from the Court at
Beldour, the Torenthi capital, badgering his wife about her hostage status.
She had answered that question quite firmly: that she was no longer hostage or Torenthi, but
gave her loyalty to her husband's liege lord in Rhemuth. The Torenthi prince had been quietly
furious. Hence, this present conflict probably was not really about border disputes; it was
Miklos' response to her refusal to espouse the cause of his companion, finally revealed as Prince
Marek of Festil, Pretender to the Crown of Gwynedd. And now Sudrey's refusal had cost her her
beloved Hrorik and the lives of many other loyal Eastmarch men.
"I do not think there will be activity farther north," she whispered, raising her gaze above
Corban's head to where Eastmarch squires and men-at-arms were loosing the lashings that held a
sad, tweed-wrapped shape across the saddle of a spent bay mare. "This is not the true
invasionтАФthough eventually, that will come. Hrorik and I had feared that such might happen, but