"George R. R. Martin - Ice and Fire 2 - A Clash of Kings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

carpenters had shaped it after the land of Westeros, sawing out each bay and
peninsula until the table nowhere ran straight. On its surface, darkened by
near three hundred years of varnish, were painted the Seven Kingdoms as they
had been in Aegon's day; rivers and mountains, castles and cities, lakes and
forests.
There was a single chair in the room, carefully positioned in the precise
place that Dragonstone occupied off the coast of Westeros, and raised up to
give a good view of the tabletop. Seated in the chair was a man in a tight-
laced leather jerkin and breeches of roughspun brown wool. When Maester
Cressen entered, he glanced up. "I knew you would come, old man, whether I
summoned you or no." There was no hint of warmth in his voice; there seldom
was.
Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and by the grace of the gods rightful
heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, was broad of
shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a tightness to his face and flesh that spoke
of leather cured in the sun until it was as tough as steel. Hard was the word
men used when they spoke of Stannis, and hard he was. Though he was not yet
five-and-thirty, only a fringe of thin black hair remained on his head,
circling behind his ears like the shadow of a crown. His brother, the late
King Robert, had grown a beard in his final years. Maester Cressen had never
seen it, but they said it was a wild thing, thick and flerce. As if in answer,
Stannis kept his own whiskers cropped tight and short. They lay like a blue-
black shadow across his square jaw and the bony hollows of his cheeks. His
eyes were open wounds beneath his heavy brows, a blue as dark as the sea by
night. His mouth would have given despair to even the drollest of fools; it
was a mouth made for frowns and scowls and sharply worded commands, all thin
pale lips and clenched muscles, a mouth that had forgotten how to smile and
had never known how to laugh. Sometimes when the world grew very still and
silent of a night, Maester Cressen fancied he could hear Lord Stannis grinding
his teeth half a castle away.
"Once you would have woken me," the old man said.
"Once you were young. Now you are old and sick, and need your sleep." Stannis
had never learned to soften his speech, to dissemble or flatter; he said what
he thought, and those that did not like it could be damned. "I knew you'd
learn what Davos had to say soon enough. You always do, don't you?"
"I would be of no help to you if I did not," Cressen said. "I met Davos on the
stair."
"And he told all, I suppose? I should have had the man's tongue shortened
along with his fingers."
"He would have made you a poor envoy then."
"He made me a poor envoy in any case. The storm lords will not rise for me. It
seems they do not like me, and the justice of my cause means nothing to them.
The cravenly ones will sit behind their walls waiting to see how the wind
rises and who is likely to triumph. The bold ones have already declared for
Renly. For R enly! " He spat out the name like poison on his tongue.
"Your brother has been the Lord of Storm's End these past thirteen years.
These lords are his sworn bannermen-"
"His, " Stannis broke in, "when by rights they should be mine. I never asked
for Dragonstone. I never wanted it. I took it because Robert's enemies were
here and he commanded me to root them out. I built his fleet and did his work,