"R Garcia Y Robertson - Strongbow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

The magic had not worked. Edmund had an evil strength that foiled even her best
spells. He had always been stronger, and able to hurt her. And he gloried in
that strength and ability. She might be her mother's heiress -- and the family
pet -- but he could always cause her pain, could casually make her cry.

"Good morrow," she muttered, her chin still held painfully in his grip. As they
had gotten older, his desire to hurt her had taken more sinister forms. When she
was seven and he was ten, Edmund had pushed her into the mud, then ground his
bootheel down on her hand, breaking her finger. But that had been child's play.
Now Clare truly feared him, knowing he meant to break not only her body, but her
spirit as well.

"That's better, little bastard." Besides his strength, Edmund liked to hold his
legitimacy over her. She might be her mother's heiress, but he was born in
wedlock. It made robbing her a moral duty.

He gave her face a gleeful inspection. "I don't know what I will do when Father
is dead. Put you in a nunnery perhaps, like your crazy mother. Or maybe marry
you to the Welsh dog-boy." He turned her head, forcing her to look into the
lower bailey, where Rory was exercising the long loping Welsh greyhounds.

Unable to move her head, she stared at Rory, a red-haired, green-eyed boy about
Edmund's age. Remarkably clean-looking, considering he was Welsh, with straight
legs and nimble feet, making him a good dancer. His sister Gwen was her serving
girl.

Rory must have heard, since he looked up. Somehow he knew they were talking
about him, though he did not even speak English, much less Norman-French. But
like all Welsh he had that animal knack for knowing without speech. He must not
have liked being talked about, because he turned and walked away, taking the
hounds with him.

Edmund jerked her head back to face him. "Or perhaps I will just wall you up in
some convenient tower, to die of thirst and madness amid your own filth." She
saw that idea had a special appeal.

"But whatever I do, we will first have a night to remember. You have that to
look forward to." He let his hand drop, turned and walked away, having more
important things to do than torment her. He too was scared. Clare could tell.
Insulting the Welsh and bullying her were Edmund's two main ways of making
himself feel better.

She turned, staring back out over the hayfield dotted with the burnt remains of
St. John's Eve bonfires, looking down on fish hawks soaring over the white
torrent of the Ebbw. Edmund only had power over her if she let him. Before
giving in she would climb to the highest part of the keep and hurl herself from
the battlements. Suicide might be a mortal sin -- but that was between her and
God. It would be her doing. Her decision.

But throwing herself off the keep would do her small good, no matter how much it