"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

her early twenties, she remained at the age she had been when she took the
fall: about five.

Not the most exciting of conversationalists--unless you're willing to listen to
her babble about her dolls.

Because of that flaw--and because those who knew of it often assumed that
the defect in her mind was the result of breeding and not an accident--she
had never been considered as suitable material for marriage. But she was her
father's only child; despite many attempts, he had never been able to produce
another to supplant her as heir. Those of elven blood lived long, but not--as
the humans believed--forever. Her father, beginning the long, slow decline
into elven old age, had been growing quietly, but increasingly, desperate.

Which was where Dyran entered the picture. He despised the women of his
own race, preferring to seek his amatory adventures in the talented and
trained arms of his concubines. But he needed an heir; and more, with an
alliance to Lord Edres, he would be in a position to arrange many duels,
supplying the means and the weapons with absolute impartiality for those
who kept no fighters of their own.

He presented himself as a suitable mate; Lord Edres was ready to take an
overseer for the girl by then, and risk having a grandson with weak magic.
Dyran must have seemed god-sent. The contract was set up to be fulfilled
once two living children had been produced; one to be Dyran's heir, and one
to be Edres's.
Dyran intended to fulfill that contract as quickly as possible, and he was one
of the few elves whose magic worked on the level of the very small as well
as the very large. Any powerful elven lord could call down lightning; Dyran
could knit up a bone, and more, if he chose. And using his powerful magics
to enhance his own fertility and that of the girl, he mated with the child with
the same indifference as one of his gladiator-studs. The experiment
succeeded so well that he had kept the means of it secret, to be used at some
later-date. At a time when most elves were satisfied with one child in a
decade, Dyran fathered male twins upon her. One went to her father's house
as a replacement heir, much to the Lord's relief. The other came with Dyran,
to be lodged with all due pomp in the nursery.

The concubines were not permitted to enter the nursery, so Serina had never
seen the boy. The child's nurses were all human, but so carefully bespelled
that they could not even think without asking permission of the Lord. Guards
just as carefully bespelled stood sentry at every possible entrance. Only when
the boy was able to protect himself--which would be at age thirteen or
thereabouts, if his powers were as strong as his father's--would the
protection end. Meanwhile, his every moment would be overseen, and every
need or want would be attended to. He would not be spoiled; spoiled children
rarely survived the cutthroat competition of elven politics. But he would be
carefully educated, carefully nurtured, carefully prepared--

And he would live in luxury that made Serina's pale by comparison.