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

"For dying?"

"No. I mean your real father. He saddled me with that castle."

Clare's real father was Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as
Strongbow, the fabled adventurer who brought Norman rule to Ireland. The Earl
and her mother had never been married, which made Clare a bastard, despite her
famous name. The earldom of Pembroke, and the great Clare estates in England,
Ireland, and Wales had gone to Strongbow's legitimate daughter, Isabel de Clare,
the damsel of Estriguil, who married William the Marshal -- "Good, courteous,
beautiful, and wise" according to the troubadours. Clare and her mother got only
the manor of Caeradar on the wild fringes of Glamorgan.

"I never wanted to be tied to some tiresome border castle, with naught but the
Welsh for neighbors...."

Clare said nothing. No one had given her a choice. Caeradar was all she had ever
known.

"I wish your father were here, to see the mess he has made."

"Beware what you wish for." Maid Marian snapped her thumb and a red-haired
Norman knight appeared wearing a chain-mail hauberk with long sleeves, and a
mail coif topped by a conical steel cap. He looked a bit out of fashion with his
bare mail and pointed helmet -- surcoats and flat helms having just come into
style -- but was still suitably impressive, with a big Welsh longbow across his
back and the three de Clare chevrons on his shield. He had broad shoulders and
bowman's arms, reaching all the way to his knees.

Clare saw at once why she so little resembled her mother. Never having seen her
father, she had spent hours pouring over old marginal illuminations, trying to
know his face, though the pictures were often tiny and in manuscripts dated long
after his death. Hair and eyes were as she had imagined. But all those
illustrations -- even his stone effigies in the cathedrals -- had not captured
how much his living face resembled hers. His features were fine and delicate,
almost womanish. Brows and chin, and the arch of his nose were hers writ large.

She stared in amazement. Until this moment her world had been defined by her
father's absence -- in life and in name. Raised by a man who was not her father.
Matched against a boy who was not her brother. With no male protector, in a
world where men did as they pleased. She was not just illegitimate, but a
posthumous bastard to boot. "The most useless thing imaginable," as Edmund liked
to remind her.

Strongbow bowed politely to her mother, "You wished for me, my Lady." His voice
too was hers, pitched like woman's, soft and courteous.

Mother sniffed, in no mood to be mollified. "I am no longer anyone's Lady, thank
goodness."