"Sherwood Smith - Summer Thunder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Sherwood)

Summer Thunder - by Sherwood Smith

I. Of a Challenge


I shall begin with the words Countess Darva of Oleff wrote as a very old woman:


This was the year that Queen Hatahra surprised us, at her advanced age, by birthing
an heir whose first wailing breath demoted the queen's sister, the Princess Lasthavais,
from heir apparent to surplus princess, to be married to a suitable king. Colend's peace
and prosperity for hundreds of years has depended not on acts of war, but on judicious
marriage-treaties.


Princess Lasthavais was then twenty-five. When we left at the beginning of summer to
the yearly music festival in Sartor, we knew our return would bring every suitor from
every kingdom in the east. Lasva's beauty was not exaggerated; if anything, the
portraits never caught the exact shade of her summer sky eyes, or the sweet but
pensive shadows at the corners of her exquisite mouth, a mouth that had seldom smiled
over the summer, alas, alas.


So you see the picture, my dears? We are at a posting house midway between Sartor
and Colend, built of decorative stone, located just above Great River Fork in Jhamond,
and there along the low roof are all our shields, including that of Princess Lasthavais.


Then rides up in military formation a group of young men, most of them with braided
hair the color of sunflowers, wearing plain coats of servant gray that were not cut like
anything our servants wear: made tight to their arms and chests down to their waists,
high at the neck, the skirts long to the tops of their high blackweave boots. And riding
at the front, all dressed in black except for the golden buckle to his belt, their leader,
who stops his horse--and you would never believe the horses, my dears--and just
raises his hand, and one of those boys throws a javelin to strike down into the ground
before the inn door. Attached to that javelin is a peculiar pennon, all black, with a fox
face on it, a strange sort of fox that almost looks like a hunting bird.


And I knew the moment that javelin struck the ground that everything in our lives was
going to change.


Hindsight, of course, is always accurate in prediction.


Otherwise Countess did not lie--she really was there, and really did see Prince Ivandred's
personal runner throw down the javelin bearing the Montredaun-An fox pennon, which
belonged to the heir to the throne of Marloven Hesea.
This prince was a slender fellow of medium height, dressed in severe black, belted at his