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

There was a heavy arm across him, pinning him easily to the ground in spite of all his vain struggles. Then a hand twisted painfully in his hair, jerking up his head so that his face could be seen.

"By the Grace of the Three," someone said explosively, "this is the very brat! He's come to our hand as easily as a cockerel follows a trail of grain."

Myrddin had no time to assess his captors. Now over him dropped a cloak which smelled sourly of human and horse sweat mingled. And that was speedily tied about him, making him into as helpless a bundle as any pack trader could fling across a horse. And like such a bundle he was hoisted to lie at a painful angle, bent over a horse which moved at a bone-shaking trot.

3.

At first the boy thought he must have fallen into the hands of a Saxon war band. But why had they not slain him out of hand? Then, as he tried to order his wits, the words he had heard spoken in his own tongue came clearly to mind. He was "the brat" of whom they bad plainly been in search. But why was he of any importance to strangers?

Myrddin fought for breath in the stifling folds of the cloak and struggled within himself for courage. Obviously he was of value ... as a slave? No, there were slaves in plenty. Because he was who he was, the close kin of Nyren? But Gwyn was the lord of the clan....

His head hanging against the horse's flank throbbed from the awkwardness of his position and he began to feel queasy. Besides, it was very hard to hold to any defense against fear.

How long his ordeal lasted Myrddin did not know. He was only half conscious when he was lifted from the horse and thrown without ceremony and with bruising force to the ground.

"Mind yourself!" ordered another voice. "They would have this one living, not dead, remember."

"Devil's brat, ill luck rides with such," growled a second.

Someone clawed off the cloak, but Myrddin was too spent to move. And he had no chance for freedom as hands closed brutally about his thin wrists, wrapping a length of hide into bonds he could not hope to loosen. The man who handled him so roughly was only a dark shape in the night. When his captor gave a last jerk to make sure of the strength of his ties, the boy roused enough to try to see more of the company about him.

Shapes came and went so that he was not sure of the count, and he could hear horses stamping. The night was very cold, with the chill of the ground on which he lay bringing on a fit of shivering he could not control. But his captors were all remarkably quiet and he was no wiser as to the identity of this group, except that he was now sure they were not Saxons.

Another one came riding into the small hollow where they had halted. One of the squatting shadows rose to his feet, went to stand beside the newcomer. "We have him, lord."

The answer to that was a grunt but the mounted man added: "Ride, then. This is no time to sit idle on your haunches. After all he is of Nyren's blood in part, and clan pride will bring out trackers. Get you going. There will be fresh mounts waiting at the Giant's Tooth."

Having given his orders, the newcomer vanished back into the blackness of the night. Around him Myrddin heard the grumbling of men who were not pleased, but who seemed bound by obedience to a strong commander.

Once more the boy was hoisted up on a horse. Only this time he was fastened in the saddle, a rope beneath the mount's belly linking ankle to ankle, then the cloak was thrown over him. His head ached savagely and he fought against swaying, lest he crash to the ground and be dragged to his death before his captors could rein in his horse.

They rode throughout the night, halting once at a tall finger of rock which might indeed have been the fang pried out of some huge and fearsome mouth, to change to other mounts picketed out to wait for them. Myrddin had long since lapsed into a daze of fear, pain and bewilderment. None of them ever addressed him, or seemed to care about his welfare, except when they had to change him from one horse to a fresh one. His whole body became one sore bruise, so that every step the horse under him took jarred him into a new torment. He set his teeth firmly, determined even in that far-off place into which his consciousness seemed to retreat that he would not give voice to any cry of pain.

They came down out of the hills. Dawn found them trotting along the smoother surface of one of those roads which the Romans had built. Myrddin could see more of the company now. They were men very like those he had always known, only their faces were those of strangers. Of the party of ten, all but two were spearmen such as might serve any clan chief as a levy, and those strung behind.

But the reins of Myrddin's mount were held by one who wore a crimson cloak cunningly worked, if now sadly soiled and frayed, with wide bands of needlework. His hair, the color of polished bronze, swept well below his shoulders in the old way of the tribes. His thick-lipped mouth was bracketed by a heavy moustache and the first stubble of days without touching a razor bristled on his full cheeks.

He was a young man, beefy of shoulder, with bands of worked bronze on his thick arms. A sword of the Roman pattern slapped against his thigh and a small wooden shield with boss and rim of metal was slung between his shoulder blades. His eyes were puffy, as if he bad been too long without sleep, and he yawned with jaw-cracking openness from time to time.

Myrddin's companion to his left was in contrast to the other. He was a lean lath of a man, his chest covered by a dented, poorly mended cuirass. A helmet that had lost its crest was jammed well down on his narrow head, for it had been originally fashioned for a much larger man. His weapons were also a sword and a spear with a wickedly barbed point. And he did not ride lumpily, half asleep as did the tribesman, but rather sat stiffly upright in the saddle and kept glancing from side to side, as if he expected some force to burst upon them out of ambush at any moment.

Myrddin was so weary that he weaved back and forth in the saddle, but neither of his captors appeared to take notice of him. Nothing he had learned in his cave retreat told him what to expect now, except that the future these men intended for him held nothing good. And he no longer tried to imagine what that future might be. Nor did he attempt to take any interest for the moment either in his escort or his surroundings. This land, to one born and bred in the mountains, with no personal knowledge of the countryside below, was' strange enough.

By noon they no longer traveled a deserted road. Parties of armed clansmen and three bands of Saxons grudgingly gave way to allow them quicker passage. Before them now rose buildings of stone, dressed and set after another fashion than that of a clan house wall.

Myrddin was both hungry and thirsty but he would not beg from those he rode among. When they stopped at a spring to drink and then water their mounts, however, one of the lesser clansmen filled a small wooden cup and held it to the boy's lips. Myrddin drank thirstily and his wits somewhat recovered. He studied this man who seemed less hardened than his companions.

He was much younger than the rest, a fair down on his chin in patches. And the eyes he raised to Myrddin's were a pale, washed blue; his expression, sullen and heavy.