"Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 01 - The Mists of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

commenced loosing the laces at the robeтАЩs throat; they ran down to a point approximately horizontal with his
nipples.
Then did he bare a pectoral pendant that was strange indeed, on the chest of a man in the robe of a druid of
the Celts.
The Egyptians of centuries agone had formed the device of the male triad and the womanтАЩs parts; a loop atop
two straight bars, one set perpendicular to the center of the other so that they formed three. Thus the male
and female united, a symbol of the creation of life, and Life everlasting of the faith of Set and Horus and
Osiris. After them the Romans used a similar design, formed of timbers, for the execution of criminals. Ankh,
those of Egypt called it; the Sign of Life. Crux, those of the more latterly тАЬworldтАЭ conquerors termed it; the
sign of Death. On it they had slain one Yeshua-Iesu in their tongue, changed in Eirrin to IosaтАФfor sedition
and the stirring up of the common folk against the priests... and, far more seriously, against the togaed
representatives of RomeтАЩs might. Along with the fish, the signтАЩ was adopted by the Friends, later called
Saints by some and Christians by others.
Though they claimed that this cross, like the open one of old Egypt, represented and promised life
everlasting, there were many and many who pointed out that the female was closed against life and further
that the sign signified pain and slow death, and a dead god.
Though he had curbed it in himself now, Lugaid had been known to refer to Iosa Chriost who was Jesus
Christus as the Dead God, and the thought crossed his mind now as he gazed upon that which hung on
MilchuтАЩs chest.
No druid wore the cross of Iosa Chriost.


PART ONE
THE KINGDOM OF CONNACHT
Chapter One:
The Plotters
The cross jumped and gleamed on the chest of the High-kingтАЩs visitor when the man coughed. Watching this
priest of Jesus come out of the disguising robe, High-king Lugaid reflected that it must sore have irked Milchu
to wear the robe of the Old Faith over his execution symbol. Iosa was the enemy of all other gods;
Christianity and its тАЬSaintsтАЭ were the enemy of all other beliefs; the druids of the Old Faith and the priests of
the New were hardly friends!
Lugaid grinned sourly. Toying with the mug of mulled wine, he reflected on how the former shepherd-slave had
returned here to EirrinтАФfrom Rome-preaching the New Faith. He attacked the old ways and beliefs directly,
that Padraigh or Patriche, claiming that while as all knew the druids could with their powers bring on
darkness, only Jesus the Christus brought light. And he had thrown down the great statue of Crom Cruach
and its attending statuary on the Plain of Slecht. Nor had that ancient god of Eirrin, no nor Behl either, done
aught to avenge the sacrilege.
Those there were who began to say that PadraighтАЩs god was God. His faith spread throughout the land of
mighty warriors. Somehow the sons of Eirrin took the dictates of peacefulness more seriously than the
people of the continent; their Saints slew Saints and all the in the name of Jesus whom they called Christus
as though it were his name. Soon, Lugaid mused without pleasure, Padraigh had converted many. Aye, even
including the wife of High-king Laegair, for he put guilt on her, and on his chief advisor as well, so that Laegair
was no enemy of the Saints. Well Lugaid remembered the changes in his mother, and the change in the
relationship between her and his royal father.
Yet even that had not been enough for the Saints. They wanted all.
They want all, Lugaid the king thought, and his hand clutched the tighter at his tankard.
Still, the Ard-righ of Eirrin was no enemy of the Old Faith either, so that druids remained welcome throughout
most of the land. That proved not sufficiently satisfactory to the dark-robed priests who came to Eirrin after
Padraigh. That stern man with his great pointed staff preached that which had aided the toppling of the
Empire of Rome and now survived it in quest of an empire of its own.