"03 - Sunrunner's Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)
Ostvel shivered. What a legacy to leave a child. A legacy Pandsala had sought to fulfill, even to planning the murder of her own nephews, Pol's half-brothers.
But they still lived. They would have to be found and their threat eliminated. They were too dangerous. With a few exceptionsЧgentle Danladi, quiet Naydra, cowed Moria and MoswenЧRoelstra's offspring were uniformly ambitious, arrogant, and scheming. Thirteen of the sisters were dead, but one still lived who was definitely her father's daughter.
Chiana was at last a princess in fact. Her marriage to Halian of Meadowlord had given this formerly powerless (therefore relatively harmless) woman a taste of ruling a whole princedom. Chiana had in two brief years grasped as much of her husband's power as she could. When Clutha died, she would rule, not Halian. Ostvel suspected she would never rest until her son, born this past spring, was High Prince. Though all Roelstra's daughters had renounced any claim to Princemarch for themselves and their heirs, Chiana had been only a child at the time and could always say she had not understood what she had signed.
Goddess help them all if she or anyone else ever found out that Pol's right came from Roelstra's blood in his veins, not just Rohan's conquest. Ostvel mentally listed those who knew: himself, Rohan, Sioned, Chay, Tobin, Myrdal, and one servant at Stronghold. Not even Andrade had known. If Sioned had her way, no one would ever know, especially not Pol. He doubted the wisdom of never telling the boy the truth, but it was not his decision to make.
He closed and locked the coffer, storing it with the other dangerous one in the secret space. Sioned might
just get away with it, he mused. Nothing in the archives even hinted that lanthe's fourth son had not died at Feruche. Everyone knew she had been pregnant; many believed the child had indeed been Rohan's. Ostvel had been at Stronghold that summer and autumn, when Sioned had emptied the keep of all but three servants and spread word that she was pregnant again. Two of those servants had since died, their knowledge of the secret blown away with their ashes on Desert winds. The one who remainedЧ Tibalia, a young girl at the time and now in charge of all maidservants at StrongholdЧwas trusted implicitly. At Skybowl, where Sioned and Ostvel and Tobin had fled from Feruche and where Pol had been Named, the story was that Sioned, furious beyond reason at knowing lanthe carried Rohan's child, had gone to destroy her rivalЧand that the strain of the journey had brought Pol's premature birth. No one had ever questioned this tale, though Ostvel was never able to decide whether it was really believed or not. Still, Skybowl's people had kept the secret of dragon gold. Whatever they truly believed, they could be trusted. And surely any rumors would have surfaced long ere this.
So Sioned was probably safe in her deception. Goddess knew, she had paid dearly for it. lanthe's sniggering reference to multiple rapes had knifed through his heart, and with more than the anguish of knowing proud Sioned had been used thus. For to her, none of it had ever happened. She had never said a word about what had been done to her at Feruche; Ostvel had learned of it from Rohan. Neither did she ever speak of that summer and autumn of waiting, or of the night Feruche had burned. None of it existed for her. Sometimes he wondered if she even had a clear memory of that time. He truly believed she had gone a little mad that year. He knew from experience that agony and terror and grief must be cleansed from the heart. Sioned's wounds were still open and bleeding. Ostvel had known her since childhood; she could hide very little from him.
He twisted the small carving of gilded elk-hoof that fit cunningly into the wood paneling. Myrdal had noted that other Secret rooms, doors, and passages were opened with a similar carving that depicted a rising star. Ostvel found it intriguing that Pol's name was the key to Castle
Crag's secrets, and eerie that lanthe had written words calling him what Sioned had Named him. And, strangest of all, the same stars provided the light used by diarmadh'im.
The word meant "Stoneburners" and came from the manner in which rock cairns glowed during certain ritual sorceries. Urival shared odd bits of Star Scroll knowledge with Sioned on sunlight, and she passed on some of them to Donato, Ostvel's court Sunrunner and a friend of their youth. Stars were everywhere these days, it seemed: used in sorcery, Pol's name, indicating Castle Crag's secretsЧ could the place have been built by these diarmadh'iml
Ostvel stretched the weariness from his shoulders, reminded by various impudent aches that this would be his forty-eighth winter. A smile formed as he reflected on where those winters had taken himЧfrom obscure retainer at Goddess Keep to Regent of Princemarch. He had a grown son who was faradhi and lord of his own keep, and an infant daughter whose mother was a princess, andЧ
He gasped. It was two years ago today that he had married that princess. He barely remembered to lock the library door before sprinting to his suite. A frantic search in his wardrobe had him cursing. He'd had the ring made, he knew he had. Alasen had given him his ring last year; by Kierstian tradition, the partner superior in rank had a second year to decide about continuing the marriage. But this year he could claim her andЧwhere was that damned ring?
Finding it at last, he sat back on his heels and sighed his reliefЧand toppled over in startlement as he heard Alasen laughing softly behind him.
"I was beginning to wonder," she said, smiling, "if you were expecting me to divorce you. After all, that ring is the only one I ever really wanted."
Chapter Three
722: Skybowl
░ you'll be off to Feruche in the morning?" Riyan asked as he and Sorin mounted the steps to the central hall.
"Why don't you come with me for a few days? I could use your advice. My little army of architects have battled each other until I've forgotten what I originally wanted to do with the place!" Sorin winced. "It took a whole year to clean out the ruins and make sure what was left wouldn't collapse. Then we had to sort out the usable stone and set it aside for when we needed it. And then another year before the new foundation was set."
"But you have started to build?"
"At last Ч and if you can call it that. Miyon hasn't been exactly eager to pay up his bet to Aunt Sioned."
Riyan sighed involuntarily with relief as they entered the cool dimness of the foyer. A mere fifteen measures away in the Veresch Mountains, autumn had already brought crisp days and chilly nights. But here in the Desert it was still stiflingly hot, even at nearly sunset.
Sorin continued his good-natured complaints. "He stalled on delivering the iron last winter and again in spring. And all this time we've been living in excruciatingly close quarters in the old barracks below the castle. I've lost track of how many fights I've broken up over what tower goes where, which windows should face what direction, and how many rooms there should be. Do you know we're still arguing over whether it's to be a defensive keep or not?"
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