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

clerical manner, tiny rosebud lips pursed in a languid pout.
But the apparent innocence of the wide blue eyes was deceptive, and the cunning mind behind
them had contrived the death of more than one person who stood in his way. In the last decade, the
Primate of All Gwynedd had become the single most powerful man in the kingdom.
"This is damnably inconvenient, if it is the challenge," Hubert muttered sullenly. "Damn, why
couldn't they have waited even another year? A second son would make all the difference."
"You're assuming that the queen carries another son and not a daughter," said the archbishop's
elder brother, Lord Manfred MacInnis, seated across from Hubert. He was a beefy, red-faced man in
his mid-fifties, muscled where Hubert was merely fat, his sunburned hands scarred and callused
from years of wielding a sword. "I wouldn't worry so much about potential heirs as I would about
the man who wears the crown right now. If this is the challenge we've been dreading, 'tis we and
the present king who will have to meet it. And if he can't do that, not even another prince will
be enough to ensure the continuance of the Haldane line in powerтАФand us as the power behind the
throne."
It was no more than a simple statement of fact. The men seated around the table, the core of
the Royal Council of Gwynedd, had been virtual rulers of Gwynedd for six years now, since plotting
the slaying of the sixteen-year-old King Javan Haldane in an "ambush" far to the northтАФblamed on
Deryni dissidentsтАФand simultaneously masterminding the coup that put his brother, Rhys Michael, on
Gwynedd's throne, though king only in name.
The cost had come high, for the hollow crown this youngest Haldane prince had never sought. Not
alone had he lost a beloved brother and king, but the shock of the sudden and brutal slayings
surrounding the coup at Rhemuth had caused his young wife to miscarry of their first childтАФa
supreme irony, for eventual control of an underage Haldane heir had been a large part of the
ultimate purpose behind the coup.
The new king had not truly comprehended the scope of his captors' ambitions in the beginning.
It was horror enough that he must fall under their control. Drugged nearly to senselessness during
the coup itself, he had been kept drug-blurred for some months thereafter, all through the public
spectacle of his brother's burial and then the sham of his own coronation.
Only when he had been safely crowned did they make their intentions clearтАФand underlined their
demands with threats of the most abhorrent nature concerning the fate of his queen if he did not
comply. He had been spared to be a puppet king and to breed Haldane princes who, in due course,
would fall totally under the sway of the great lordsтАФand under the sway of regents, if their
father made himself sufficiently troublesome that he must be eliminated before a tame heir came of
age.
Fortunately for all concerned, especially the king, the prospect of another regicide became
less and less likely as the first few months passed. Though dispirited at first, the new king
gradually seemed to become reconciled to the inevitability of his situation, allowing himself to
be shaped as the docile and biddable figurehead they required.
Compliance slowly bought small indulgences. Once the king ceased to be argumentative or to
display stubborn flashes of independent thinking, permission was granted for him to attend routine
meetings of the council. A satisfactory history of behavior at council meetings earned him the
privilege of presiding over formal courts, though always closely attended and working from a
carefully rehearsed script. Very occasionally, the queen and later their young son were allowed to
appear at his side on state occasions. After the first year or so, when it appeared that he had
accepted the restrictions placed upon him and decided to make the most of royal privilege, they
had even allowed him to resume his training in arms, against just such a threat as now seemed to
be materializing. The queen's new pregnancy seemed to confirm Rhys Michael's capitulation, though
there were some seated around this table who still had reservations.
"Let's get down to specifics," Tammaron said. "This hardly comes as any great surprise, after