"Andre Norton - Merlin' s mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Thus Nyren had returned to the clanship of his fathers,
had drawn around him those of kin blood. Perhaps he had
only been waiting ... Brigitta sipped her ale again. Her
father was one who kept his own counsel, even among the
kin.

She studied him now where he sat in the high seat of
the clan house. Though he wore the dress of the hills it
was in more somber colors than that of the men around
him. His tunic of fine linen had been worked by her own
hands with a pattern copied from an old vase, a wreathing
of leaves in threads of gilt and green. His trousers were of
dark red, his cloak of the same shade. Only the wide
torque of gold about his throat, the two brand-bracelets on
his wrists and the seal ring on his forefinger, equaled in


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splendor the ornaments of his fellows,

Yet he held authority among them, and no man enter-
ing the clan house and setting eyes on Nyren need ask
who was chief in this place. Brigitta felt the swell of pride

10 Andre Norton

as she watched him now, displaying not a flicker of emo-
tion as he listened with surface courtesy to the words'of
the High King's messenger, who was leaning forward,
plainly ill at ease as he tried to impress this small chief, as
the High King might rate Nyren.

But the influence of the lord of this clan reached
beyond the walls of his kin house and many among the
hills listened closely to any words of his. For his wisdom
was great and he was a wily and successful raider and war
leader. He might have called himself king, after the fash-
ion of others hereabouts, but he did not choose to do so.

Brigitta stirred again impatiently. She wished that her
father might speedily send the High King's man about his
business, that they might feast at their ease with no trou-
bling from the world outside on this night.

She could catch the roar of the wind above the sounds
of the court hall below. There was a storm, and a storm
on this night was unlucky. It might well carry the hosts of