"Roads by Seabury Quinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quinn Seabury)

"Thou'lt be a wife and equal - aye, by Thor's Iron

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Gauntlets, and whoso fails to do thee honor shall be shorter
by a head!"
Pilate's legion was recruited largely from Germanic
tribesmen, and among these Claus found enough of his
people to arrange a marriage ceremony like those of his
homeland. Erinna's name was changed to Unna, and on the
day they wed she sat in the bride's seat robed in modest white
with a worked head-dress on her clustering black ringlets, a
golden clasp about her waist and gold rings on her arms and
fingers. The Northlings raised their drinking-skulls aloft and
shouted "Skoal!" and "Waes hael!" to the bride and
bridegroom, and clamored on their shields with sword and
axe. Then, when the feast was finished and the bride's cup
had been drained, because her broken foot was not yet
mended, Claus bore Unna in his arms to the bride's bed. Thus
did Claudius the centurion, who was also Claus the Northling,
wed a woman out of Tyre in the fashion of the Northmen.

Now talk ran through the city of Jerusalem that the
Prophet whom the priests had done to death was risen from
the dead. Men said that while His sepulchre was watched by
full-armed guards an angel came and rolled away the stone
and He came forth, all bright and glorious. And many were
the ones who testified that they had seen Him in His
resurrected flesh.
The priests and temple hangers-on cast doubt upon the
story, and swore that whilst the guardsmen slept the

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Prophet's followers had come and stolen Him away, but
Claus and Unna both believed. That Mary Magdalene who
aforetime had been Unna's mistress swore she had seen Him
in the garden by the tomb, and heard His voice and touched
His solid flesh. Claus knew that soldiers under Pilate's orders
did not sleep on duty. The Prophet's followers could no more
have won through the guard to steal His body from the tomb
than they could have rescued Him from a dungeon in the
citadel.
"Said I not He was a god, e'en as He hanged upon the
gallows tree?" asked Claus. "Baldur the Beautiful is He:
Baldur the Fair cannot be holden by the gates of Hel; He is