"Mary Renault - Greece 1 - The King Must Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

in the chariot; but a boat was waiting, to save our best clothes. On the other side we mounted again, and
skirted for a while the Kalaurian shore, looking across at Troizen. Then we turned inward, through pines.
The horses' feet drummed on a wooden bridge and stopped. We had come to the little holy island at the
big one's toe; and kings must walk in the presence of the gods.

The people were waiting. Their clothes and garlands, the warriors' plumes, looked bright in the clearing
beyond the trees. My grandfather took my hand and led me up the rocky path. On either side a row of
youths was standing, the tallest lads of Troizen and Kalauria, their long hair tied up to crest their heads
like manes. They were singing, stamping the beat with their right feet all together, a hymn to Poseidon
Hippios. It said how the Horse Father is like the fruitful earth; like the seaway whose broad back bears
the ships safe home; his plumed head and bright eye are like daybreak over the mountains, his back and
loins like the ripple in the barley field; his mane is like the surf when it blows streaming off the wave
crests; and when he stamps the ground, men and cities tremble, and kings' houses fall.

I knew this was true, for the roof of the sanctuary had been rebuilt in my own lifetime; Poseidon had
overthrown its wooden columns, and several houses, and made a crack in the Palace walls. I had not felt
myself that morning; they had asked me if I was sick, at which I only cried. But after the shock I was
better. I had been four years old then, and had almost forgotten.

Our part of the world had always been sacred to Earth-Shaker; the youths had many of his deeds to sing
about. Even the ford, their hymn said, was of his making; he had stamped in the strait, and the sea had
sunk to a trickle, then risen to flood the plain. Up till that time, ships had passed through it; there was a
prophecy that one day he would strike it with his fish-spear, and it would sink again.
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As we walked between the boys, my grandfather ran his eye along them, for likely warriors. But I had
seen ahead, in the midst of the sacred clearing, the King Horse himself, browsing quietly from a tripod.

He had been hand-broken this last year, not for work but for this occasion, and today he had had the
drugged feed at dawn. But without knowing this, I was not surprised he should put up with the people
round him; I had been taught it was the mark of a king to receive homage with grace.

The shrine was garlanded with pine boughs. The summer air bore scents of resin and flowers and
incense, of sweat from the horse and the young men's bodies, of salt from the sea. The priests came
forward, crowned with pine, to salute my grandfather as chief priest of the god. Old Kannadis, whose
beard was as white as the King Horse's forelock, laid his hand on my head nodding and smiling. My
grandfather beckoned to Diokles, my favorite uncle; a big young man eighteen years old, with the skin of
a leopard, which he had killed himself, hanging on his shoulder. "Look after the boy," said my
grandfather, "till we are ready for him."

Diokles said, "Yes, sir," and led me to the steps before the shrine, away from where he had been
standing with his friends. He had on his gold snake arm-ring with crystal eyes, and his hair was bound
with a purple ribbon. My grandfather had won his mother at Pylos, second prize in the chariot race, and
had always valued her highly; she was the best embroidress in the Palace. He was a bold gay youth, who
used to let me ride on his wolfhound. But today he looked at me solemnly, and I feared I was a burden
to him.