"McKillip,.Patricia.A.-.Qrmh.1.-.Riddle.Master.Of.Hed.V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

"I know what grows in our fields. I also know what I've been sweeping around under your bed for six months. I think you should either wear it or sell it. The dust is so thick on it you can't even see the colors of the jewels."

There was silence, brief and unexpected, in the hall. Tristan stood with her arms folded, the ends of her braids coming undone. Her chin was raised challeng-ingly, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes as she faced Morgon. Eliard's mouth was open. He closed it with a click of teeth.

"What jewels?"

"It's a crown," Tristan said. "I saw one in a picture in a book of Morgon's. Kings wear them."

"I know what a crown is." He looked at Morgon, awed. "What on earth did you trade for that? Half of Hed?"

"I never knew you wanted a crown," Cannon Master said wonderingly. "Your father never had one. Your grandfather never had one. YourЧ"

"Cannon," Morgon said. He raised his hands, dropped the heels of them over his eyes. The blood was high in his face. "Kern had one."

"Who?"

"Kern of Hed. He would be our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. No. One more great. It was made of silver, with a green jewel in it shaped like a cabbage. He traded it one day for twenty barrels of Herun wine, thereby instigatingЧ"

"Don't change the subject," Eliard said sharply. "Where did you get it? Did you trade for it? Or did you ..." He stopped. Morgon lifted his hands from his eyes.

"Did I what?"

"Nothing. Stop looking at me like that. You're trying to change the subject again. You traded for it, or you stole it, or you murdered someone for itЧ"

"Now, thenЧ" Grim Oakland, Morgon's portly overseer, said placatingly.

"Or you just found it laying in the corncrib one day, like a dead rat. Which?"

"I did not murder anyone!" Morgon shouted. The clink of pots from the kitchen stopped abruptly. He lowered his voice, went on tartly, "What are you accusing me of?"

"I didn'tЧ"

"I did not harm anyone to get that crown; I did not trade anything that doesn't belong to me for it; I did not steal itЧ"

"I wasn'tЧ"

"It belongs to me by right. What right, you have not touched on yet. You asked a riddle and tried to answer it; you are wrong four times. If I bumbled through riddles like that, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. I am going down to welcome the traders at Tol. When you decide to do some work this morning, you might join me."

He turned. He got as far as the front steps when Eliard, the blood mounting to his face, broke away from the transfixed group, moved across the room with a speed belied by his size, threw his arms around Morgon and brought him off the steps face down in the dirt.

The chickens and geese scattered, squawking indignantly. The farmers, the small boy from Tol, the woman who cooked, and the girl who washed pots jammed the door at once, clucking.

Morgon, groping for the breath the smack of the earth had knocked out of him, lay still while Eliard said between his teeth, "Can't you answer a simple question? What do you mean you wouldn't be talking to me now? Morgon, what did you do for that crown? Where did you get it? What did you do? I swear I'llЧ"

Morgon lifted his head dizzily. "I got it in a tower." He twisted suddenly, throwing Eliard off balance into one of Tristan's rosebushes.

The battle was brief and engrossing. Morgon's farmers, who until the previous spring had been under Athol's placid, efficient rule, stared half-shocked, half-grinning as the Prince of Hed was sent rolling across a mud puddle, staggered to his feet, and, head lowered like a bull, launched himself at his brother. Eliard Shook himself free and countered with a swing of his fist that, connecting, sounded in the still air like the distant thunk of ax into wood. Morgon dropped like a sack of grain. Then Eliard fell to his knees beside the prone body and said, aghast, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Morgon, did I hurt you?"

And Tristan, mute and furious, dumped a bucket of milk over their heads.