"Lawhead, Stephen - Albion 02 - The Silver Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lawhead Stephen)

"The pale white corpse will soon be covered, amidst earth and oak: Woe
my heart, the Ruler of Clans is slain.

"The pale white corpse will soon be covered, under the greensward in
the tumulus: Woe my heart, Prydain's chieftain will join his fathers in
the Hero Mound.

"Men of Prydain! Fall on your faces, grief has overtaken you. The Day
of Strife has dawned! Great the grief, sharp the sorrow. No glad
songs will be sung in the land, only songs of mourning. Let all men
make bitter lament. The Pillar of Prydain is shattered. The Hall of
Tribes has no roof. The Eagle of Findargad is gone. The Boar of
Sycharth is no more. The Great King, the Golden King, Meldryn Mawr is
murdered. The Day of Strife has dawned!

"Bitter the day of birth, for death is its companion. Yet, though life
be cold and cruel, we are not without a last consolation. For to die
in one world is to be born into another. Let all men hear and
remember!"

So saying, I turned to the warriors at the bier and commanded them. The
horses were unhitched, the wagon was raised and its wheels removed. The
warriors then lifted the bier shoulder high and began to walk slowly
towards the cairn, passing between the double line of torches, moving
slowly up the radiant way to the grave mound

As the bier passed, I took my place behind it and began the Lament for
a Fallen Champion, singing softly, slowly, allowing the words to fall
like tears into the silence of the glen. Unlike other laments, this
one is sung without the harp. It is sung by the chief hard and,
although I had never sung it, I knew it well.

It is a strong song, full of bitterness and wrath at the way in which
the champion's life has been cut short and his people deprived of his
valor and the shelter of his shield. I sang the lament, my voice
rising full and free, filling the night with harsh and barren sorrow.
There is no comfort in this song: it sings the coldness of the tomb,
the obscenity of corruption, and the emptiness, waste, and futility of
death. I sang the bitterness of loss and the aching loneliness of
grief. I sang it all, driving my words hard and biting them between my
teeth.

The people wept. And I wept too, as up and up the Aryant 01, and
slowly, slowly we approached the burial cairn. The song moved to its
end: a single rising note becoming a sharp, savage scream. This
represents the rage of the life cruelly cut short.

My voice rose to the final note, growing, expanding, filling the night
with its accusation. My lungs burned, my throat ached; I thought my