"Morgan Llywelyn - Druids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Llywelyn Morgan)

AWOKE TO terror because I heard them singing.
Yet we were a people who sang. We were of the Celtic

I

.race, that tall people famed for their fierce blue eyes and fiercer
passions. Most of my clan, my blood kin, had fair hair, but in my
youth mine was the color of dark bronze.
I have always been different.

Nine moons after my birth our druids gave me the name of
Ainvar. I was born of the tribe of the Camutes in Celtic Gaul;

free Gaul. My father was not considered a prince, as he had no
swords sworn to him personally, but he was of the warrior aris-
tocracy and entitled to wear the gold arm ring, as my old grand-
mother frequently reminded me. My parents and brothers were
dead before I was old enough to remember them, so she raised me
alone in their lodge in the Fort of the Grove. I remember when I
believed the fort with its timber palisade was the entire world.

The air always rang with song. We sang for the sun and the
rain, for death and birth, for work and war. Yet when I was star-
tied awake by the druids singing in the grove, I was badly fright-
ened. What if they had discovered me?

I should not have slept. I had meant to stay alert in some hiding
place until dawn, watching until the druids came to the grove.
But I was raw with youth; the events of the night had exhausted
me. When I finally found a refuge, I must have tumbled into sleep
between one breath and the next. I knew nothing more until I
heard the druids singing and realized they were already in the
sacred grove. They must have passed very near me.

Spying on them was strictly forbidden, subject to the direst
punishments, unnamed but whispered.
y My mouth went dry, my skin prickled. I had not expected to
^ be caught. I just wanted to see great magic done.

4 Morgan Llywelyn

With agonizing slowness 1 got to my feet. Every dead leaf
rustled my betrayal. But the druids continued without interruption
until I began to think they were unaware of me.

Perhaps I could creep close enough to watch them after all, I
told myself. My fear was not as great as my curiosity-
It never has been.