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

you traitor and heretic, using our young king's regency to enrich their own
coffers.
She shook her head as she gazed at him, finding but little comfort in the
knowledge that he no longer need play at anyone's conception of who or what
he ought to be. He had worn the Alister Cullen identity for the last twelve years
and more of his life, and vestiges of it remainedтАФand would, even to the grave.
The fine, silver-gilt hair capped close to his head was tonsured in the manner
his alter-ego had favored, but both men had loved the white-sashed cassock of
rich Michaeline blue. And the smooth, roundish face now dimly illuminated by
her handfire was wholly his own.
He looked more austere in death than he had seemed in life, even as Alister,
but the well-loved face was peaceful in its repose, the agonies of those final
moments all but erased by some small, secret satisfaction evinced in a gentle
upturn of lip discernible only to close intimates.
Well, the regents shall have their reward in the end, God willing, she mused.
What do they know of truth, who twist and mold it to their own ends ? Traitor and
heretic you are none, nor ever were, for all that such declaration serves their evil
purposes. Alister Cullen you are no more, though remaining priest forever. Saint,
I know not. But you were and are my father, my teacher, my friend.
 She bowed her head at that, closing her eyes against the sight of him dead,
and wished she could close her mind to memory as wellтАФof finding him in the
snow, nearly a week before, his own shape upon him, his quicksilver head
pillowed on the breast of the dead Jebediah, their life's blood mingled and
frozen on the icy crusts surrounding them.
But though "Alister Cullen" appeared to be as dead as Jebediah, Evaine had
come to believe he had not died at all, but lay bound in a deep and powerful
spell, thought by most magical practitioners to be only the stuff of legends. The
coolly polished Deryni adept part of her warned that such speculation might be
mere denial, an unrealistic refusal on her part to accept the inevitability of his
death; but the loving daughter, so recently bereft of husband and first-born son
as well as father, kept whispering seductively, What if? What if?
Help me know what to do, Father, she breathed, raising her head to look at
him again after a few seconds. I don't know where you are now. If you really are
тАФgone beyond my reachтАФthen it is my fervent prayer that you abide in the
Blessed Presence, as your beautiful soul most certainly must merit.
But what if you aren't really dead? Is that only my loving wish, to keep you
with me a little longer, or does some part of you truly cling to life as we mortals
know it, so that we really could somehow bring you back to us?
She felt a fluctuation in the shields behind her and then the soft breath of
the door opening and closing for another presence. Joram set his hand on her
shoulder as he knelt beside her for a moment, golden head bowing in a brief
prayer for the man who had sired both of them. Then he crossed himself in a
brisk, automatic gesture and turned his gaze full upon her, grey eyes meeting
blue.
"Ansel is waiting for you to relieve him," he said quietly. "The others will be
expecting us at Dhassa."
Sighing, Evaine gave him a nod and rose as he, too, got to his feet.
"I suppose it is time we began picking up the pieces," she murmured. "I've
indulged my grief quite long enough."
Joram managed a taut smile. "Don't be too harsh with yourself. You've lost a