"Melanie Rawn - The Sacrifice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

"Give me back my ring!"
"Let us not forget that in the end, St. Catherine's head was cut off, and her blood flowe
"Please, your graceтАФ"
"Would you rather have it than your sword?"
"My sword is broken," she whispered, bending her head.
 "Yes. I had heard that. An ancient sword, found in a chapel built by Charles Martel. H
did you know it was there? Not, I think, because any person living told you. It was the Voic
was it not, the Voices you claim to be those of saints, who have told you things you should n
have known." He ticked off the points on his fingersтАФlong, elegant fingers, like his
mother's. "You knew that Sir John Fastolf had defeated the French at Rouvray. You knew
would be captured before Midsummer's Day. You knew you would be wounded at Orleans
not unto death. You knew where the sword would be hidden. And, most amazing of allтАФfo
have heard reports of the Dauphin and he is a poor excuse for a princeтАФyou recognized
Charles at once in a roomful of people determined not to reveal his identity. But above all
you knew you will surely die. You told the Dauphin so, did you not? That he must make the
most of you, for you would only last one year?"
"Yes," she said dully. "I told him that. It seemed such a long time, then. . . ."
"You survived that which you should not have survived," he went on, replacing the ring
the leather pouch. "Your wound at Orleans. Your wound at Paris. How is this possible?"
"St. Catherine cured me of the wound I took at Orleans."
"And in less than a fortnight, too," he agreed. "Remarkable, yes? And the wound taken
ParisтАФfive days to cure that one, wasn't it? Miraculous, most would say."
"ButтАФyou do not say it, Cardinal."
"No, I do not. You survived a leap from Beaurevoir Tower, a structure fully seventy fe
high. How?"
"It was very wrong of me to do that," she said earnestly, looking him in the eye once ag
"St. Catherine told me almost every day that I should not do it, and that God would help me
Her jaw set, and her fine eyes sparked once more. "But I would rather have died than fall in
the hands of the English!"
"Why? Because you knew you would burn, with no blood spilled?"
"Blood! Blood!" she exclaimed, exasperated, as if she truly did not know what he mea
"Why do you speak always of blood?"
"Do you remember what day it was that the Dauphin was absurdly crowned in the
cathedral at Rheims? Of course you do. Sunday, the seventeenth day of July. There was a fu
moon that morning." When she looked blank, he snapped, "It was not God who consecrated
Charles, but the devil. Your so-called king was ordained by witchcraft, not Holy Scripture.
She looked horrified, and crossed herself. But then the peasant shrewdness returned to
face, and she said, "You have made a study of such things, your grace. You know more abo
them than ever I did and ever I could. May I ask 'why' of you?"
"You dissemble, Joan. You were born in a land of witches, of faerie trees and fountain
of secret rituals and foul heresies. Your actions have betrayed you. I shall give but one
example. When you put your armor in the church at St. Denis, you caused candles to be ligh
and said that the melted wax from these candles should fall on the heads of little children, s
that they would know happiness." He eyed her disdainfully. "Did you dare ask for black
candles, Joan, or was that going too far?"
 "That is not true! I have denied that! I never did or said such things!"
"Witnesses say that you did. And you continually assert that all you have done was by t
command of God, speaking to you through your Voices! Alors, ma fille, as to the nature of t
Voices . . . why should saints appear to such as you? Ignorant, unlettered, uneducated, of the
commonest common bloodтАФwhat smallest thing about you is worthy to receive the notice o