"Andre Norton & Rosemary Edghill - Carolus Rex 1 - The Shadow of Albion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

sun kindled an azure world into color.
And then the picture changed again, blue to fire-scarlet, as the sun hung
spellbound above the evening horizon and all the world was gold. Gold тАУ Blue. And
only Lady RoxburyтАЩs determination pressed her forward, as night flickered into day
until the interlocking worlds danced in time with her heartbeat, fire to ice to fire. A
heaviness, neither cold nor hot but slow as earth, was creeping through her limbs,
stealing toward her heart. Mercilessly Lady Roxbury plied her whip now, cracking it
over the. heads of her team until their bay coats were dark with foam and they were
running flat out. She had passed the kingstone of the Dance and barely noticed, so
caught up was she in the desperate determination to reach her appointed place. The
world was mist-grey and now, at last, Lady Roxbury heard what she ought to have
heard earlier тАУ the earthshaking rumble of an eight-horse coach on the road ahead.
And suddenly the coach was there, filling all the road, and she was desperately
dragging back on the ribbons to save her team, but the reins slipped through her
nerveless fingers and she felt the phaeton lurch wildly, uncontrolled, before she felt
nothing at all.

***
Only a stubborn determination to have her own way, and the ability to pass
unobserved that she had gained in the forests of her New World childhood enabled
Sarah to reach her goal in safety.
The conversation of the other passengers, overheard as the Lady Bright sailed
into Bristol harbor, informed her that a coach carrying mail and passengers left the
port city each day at noon, reaching London the following morning. With that
information to guide her, it was a simple matter for Sarah to pack an inconspicuous
bandbox with the most necessary items for her journey, muffle herself to anonymity
in a hooded grey cloak, and slip down the Lady Bright & gangway in the bustle of
departing passengers before Captain Challoner or any other well-meaning good
Samaritan could stop her. Unfamiliar sounds and smells assailed her on every side,
and at any moment Sarah expected to hear Captain ChallonerтАЩs voice raised behind
her. She hated to deceive him тАУ even if only by misdirection тАУ but Sarah was quite
certain that if the Lady Bright's captain had known of her plan to travel to London
by the Mail he would not have allowed it.
Fortunately, through the late Mrs. KennetтАЩs good offices Sarah was provided not
only with a bank-draft which, Mrs. Kennet had assured her, any English bank would
be pleased to honor, but with a small budget of English coin as well, which
contained enough to pay the eleven-shilling coach fare with something left over.
As wary as any wild creature, Sarah walked onward, and soon found that she had
left the Bristol docks behind for a world of imposing brick warehouses whose
construction made even the vast Baltimore wharf from which Sarah had embarked
scant weeks before seem small and shabby. Then the warehouses gave way to a
street of buildings jammed cheek by jowl тАУ a street filled with vehicles of every kind
and people of every description. Sarah pressed her hands to her cheeks in utter
confusion. Though Mrs. Kennet had spoken of Bristol as a great city, never in her
wildest nightmare had Colonial-bred Sarah imagined that a city could be so large, so
noisy, and so filthy. And London, so she understood, was even larger.
For a moment her resolve failed her, and Sarah wished nothing more than to flee
back to the familiarity of the Lady Bright and let Captain Challoner determine her
fate. But that stubborn streak of independence which, more than any other
characteristic, had shaped Sarah CunninghamтАЩs life so far, forbade so craven an