"Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 1 - Harrowing of Gwynedd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

regents for the twelve-year-old King Alroy, had declared Dolban's patron, the
Deryni Saint Camber, to be no saint at all, but a heretic and traitorтАФand
therein lay Dolban's fate.
Nevermore was the name of Camber MacRorie to be spoken in Gwynedd, on
pain of consequences almost too terrible to comprehend. Henceforth, a first
offense would merit public flogging, with the offender's tongue forfeit for a
second utteranceтАФwhich accounted for the pincers and knives Queron had
seen. And only that special death reserved for heretics would answer for further
intransigence.
Not that Saint Camber's Servants at Dolban could have known in time how
they transgressed the lawтАФor would have cared, had they known, for their
devotion to the Deryni saint had been unswerving for more than a decade. The
edict rescinding Camber's sainthood and declaring the penalties for defying
that edict had only been promulgated the day before, many miles away in
Ramos. Their enemies had never intended to give them any advance warning.
The first inkling of their plight would have been when the regents'
soldiersтАФepiscopal troops, at that swarmed into the abbey yard and began
taking prisoners.
All surely had heard the edict read as the floggings began, however, and had
ample time to contemplate the full measure of the edict's horror as the
executioners began their grisly work with pincers and knives. Tongueless, the
condemned could not even plead ignorance of the law, or recant, or beg for
mercy, as the soldiers piled the kindling high around the rows of stakes and
passed among them with their torches.
Stunned at the legalism behind the savagery he had witnessed, tears
streaming down his cheeks, Queron had withdrawn from Revan's mind,
burying his face in his hands to weep silently.
"Forgive me for my earlier lapse," he finally had whispered, mindful that the
breeze had shifted upwind of them and would carry sound down to the guards
belowтАФthough at least it no longer brought them the stench of burned flesh.
"You were entirely correct that magic would not have been the answer.''
Wiping at his tears with the back of his hands, he had summoned the
courage to look up at Revan humbly.
"Rhys taught you well," he went on quietly. "If I'd been thinking clearly, I
suppose I should have expected you might hit me over the head. But I never
thought to be drugged from my own Healer's kit."
Revan managed a hint of a bitter smile, turning his light brown eyes on
Queron only briefly. тАЬBe thankful I didn't dose you with merasha. YouтАЩd still be
out of action. I couldn't let you go to certain death, though, now could I?"
"I suppose not."
Sighing, Queron fingered the end of his grey-streaked Gabrilite braid where
it had escaped from under his hood, knowing that a painful decision was
approaching.
 "I think I've been away from my Gabrilite Order far too long,'' he had
whispered. тАЬIt becomes all too easy to forget that I swore never to kill. I suppose
that goes for killing myself as well as other menтАФthough there are a few down
below who could do with killing."
He glanced at the dimming yard below, at the torches moving among the
burned-out stakes as the guards patrolled the last of the dying fires, then
looked back at Revan thoughtfully.