"02 - The Star Scroll" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

a moving experience for her, it must be near ecstacy for faradh 'im.

The ceiling had been the hardest to reconstruct. Some of its supports had been demolished, and it had taken years of study for Audrite to discern the proper placement of windows. The tiled floor had been painstakingly lifted from the soil and overgrown grasses on the far side of Dorval, and was marked with various symbols for the seasons and indicated the position and phases of the three moons on any given night of the year. Audrite had spent years checking its accuracy, and several new tiles had been fashioned at her direction to replace ones worn or broken long ago at the other keep. Her calculations on the exact relationship of ceiling to tiles, and the observations of Lleyn's Sunrunners, Meath and Eolie, had awed everyone. For the original design of this oratory had been correct down to the slightest nuance.

Twenty-one years ago, Prince Lleyn had learned from Lady AndradeЧshe who ruled Goddess Keep and all SunrunnersЧthat the abandoned castle had once belonged to the faradh 'im. Stone had been taken from it for hundreds of years to construct other places, including Graypearl, but on Lleyn's return from the Rialla that autumn an excavation had begun in earnest. This master-work had been their most important find, save one. Audrite walked softly over the summer tiles, a smile on her face for the sheer beauty of the oratory and the sheer joy of understanding it. The structure had become again what it had been meant to be: the most remarkable calendar in all the princedoms.

She heard steps on the footbridge and turned. Meath entered the oratory and bowed a greeting. "Full moons tonight," he said, smiling as he shared her delight at their knowledge.

"You can use them to contact Princess Sioned," Audrite told him.

"You've talked to Pol, then?"

"Yes. I'll have to give you my notes on the scrolls." She frowned slightly. "Meath, do you think it's wise to give them to Andrade now? She's very old. It may be that she won't have time to discover their meaningЧand .it

may also be that the next Lady or Lord of Goddess Keep won't use the knowledge wisely."

Thefaradhi shrugged and spread his hands wide, rings glinting in the colored sunlight. "I'm convinced she'll outlive us all, if only through pure cussedness." He smiled, then shook his head. "As for the other thingЧI agree that it's a risk. But I'd rather have Andrade examine the scrolls now and decide what to do with them than wait and see who next rules Goddess Keep."

"You were the one who found them," she said slowly. "I've helped with as many of the words as I couldЧand, Goddess knows, there wasn't much I fully understood," she added regretfully. "But the responsibility for them is yours."

"Well, it's true that I dug them out of the rubble, but I'd prefer not to have the choice of what's done with them. If they're as important as we suspect, then it's knowledge I'm not qualified to deal with. I'd rather see the scrolls in Andrade's hands, not mine. She'll either understand them and use them, or destroy them if they're too dangerous."

Audrite nodded. "Come by my library later tonight and I'll give you my notes."

"Thank you, my lady. Andrade will appreciate it, I know." He smiled again. "I wish you could be there to see her face!"

"So do I. I just hope the shock isn't too much for her.''

* * *

The hundred lines of verse duly copied and presented to Princess Audrite, Pol was free by late morning to ride to the harbor with Meath. Shops snuggled along the village's narrow main street, not as varied in their wares as the stores in Dorval's main shipping center down the coast or in Radzyn's port. But there were interesting things to be had hereЧcrafts native to the island and not much traded elsewhere, small items made of silk remnants, jewelry cunningly fashioned to hide defects in pearls not suitable for the general market. Pol and Meath tied their horses in front of a dockside inn where they planned to have lunch later, and walked up and down the street, window-shopping.

The merchants all knew Pol, of course, and were of two attitudes when it came to selling him things. Some, aware of his father's great wealth, quoted outrageous prices in hopes of siphoning off a little of that wealth for themselves. Others cared more about royal favor, and un-derpriced their wares in a shameless bid for Pol's further patronage. The young prince usually did his looking through the windows, then consulted with companions on the fair price of goods that caught his eye before making his purchases. Patient for the first and second tours up and down the street, Meath finally asked Pol if he intended to spend all day at this. A third perusal was all the Sunrunner would stand for; he ordered the boy back to the inn for sustenance.

Prince Lleyn did not tolerate seafaring roughnecks in this port. He discouraged them elsewhere, naturally, but here in the precincts of his palace they were forbidden. Thus everything catering to such menЧtaverns where strong drink was served and brawls were common, disreputable lodgings where they bedded down between voyages, and the girls they bedded down withЧwere missing from Graypearl's little harbor. The law assured domestic peace and the safety of the residents as well as of the highborn youths who came to Dorval as squires, and the old prince himself often ventured down to the port for a meal or a day's ramble in the fresh air. The inn Meath chose was one Lleyn had introduced him to years ago, a clean and merry establishment perfectly safe for the heir to the High Prince. But even if it had not been, Meath's great height, broad shoulders, and faradhi rings would have ensured Pol's safety.

"Goddess greeting to you, Sunrunner! And to the young master, as well!" The innkeeper, Giamo by name, came out from behind his counter and bowed his respects before escorting them to a table. "Honored to be of service to you both! Now, we've some fine cold roast today, and bread right out of the oven, and the first berries of the season, so sweet that they don't need any honey dol-loped on themЧalthough my good wife having a tooth for it, she slathers it on anyway! Will that suit?"

"Perfectly," Meath said with a happy sigh. "You can

add a tankard for me and something appropriate for my friend, here."

Pol cast him a deeply reproachful look, and when the innkeeper had gone to fetch the meal said, "What's 'appropriate' for me, anyway? A glass of milk? I'm not a baby, Meath!"

"No, but not tall or hefty enough for a bout with the ale Giamo brews, either. Not at just over fourteen winters! Put on a few fingers' height and some flesh on those bones, and then we'll see." Meath grinned. "Besides, all I lack is your mother raving at me for letting you get drunk."

Pol made a face, then turned his attention to the other noontime patrons of the inn. There were a few pearl-fishers, easily identifiable by their lean, lithe bodies, well-developed chest muscles, and the scars on their hands from digging shells out of rock crevices. Skin weathered by sea and salt had paled a little during the winter months, but soon they would be out in their small boats again, browned from head to heels by summer sun during the annual harvest. Lleyn's squires often enjoyed the treat of a day's sail in the pearl covesЧbut not Pol. The first time he'd taken a look at those tiny, flat-bottomed boats bobbing gently at their moorings, he'd been most humili-atingly sick.

In one corner of the room a pair of merchants haggled pleasantly over their meal, swatches of silk on the table between them. A young man wooed a pretty girl nearby, their lunch forgotten as he whispered in her ear and sent her into gales of laughter. Near the door sat five soldiers, four men and a middle-aged woman, all dressed in light harness but without swords, according to the law here. They wore the solid red tunics and the white candle badge of Prince Velden of Grib.