"Nancy Springer - Chains Of Gold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

тАЬYou have strong magic,тАЭ she said. тАЬLet it help you in some way.тАЭ

тАЬWhat are you doing here at this time of night, Em?тАЭ Arlen asked her. It was a foolish question, intended
only as a diversion for LonnтАЩs sake, and she knew it. She made a small noise that might have been a
cough or stifled laughter, as if she were about to ask him the same. But she did not.

тАЬI could not sleep,тАЭ she said, and I never suspected the story that lay behind those words.

тАЬWe ought to see Lady Cerilla back to her room,тАЭ said Lonn rather harshly.

Erta went with us, walking ahead of us, our defense and scout, but we met no one. It was a small hold,
as I had thought, and we found my chamber quickly. Arlen and I looked at each other, but there was
nothing to say, not in front of the others, and with a glance and a small smile we parted. I closed my
door, flung my blanket on my bed, and crawled under it. Sleep did not come quicklyтАФI heard the tolling
of the bell for the morning ritual and saw the dawn of my wedding day show silver-gold through the
window slot. The sun rose, sending out beams the color of orichalc, the glowing bronze of the mountains,
strongest of metals. Chains of orichalc bound the glycon, the great serpent of the deepтАж

My thoughts strayed, and after a while I dozed.




THREE



I dreamed a strange and vivid dream.

I was hunted, running for my life; I was the swift and tawny deer that leaps between the spires of the
Mountains of the Mysteries, and the hunter was an enigma, all flux and fear, first a horror, the flayed man,
then a faceless being on a faceless horse, than a great serpent like the glycon. I ran amid oak trees and
willow and rowan and golden apple, through mist and across rivers where women in white robes turned
into swans and melted into seawater. I ranтАФand looked back over my shoulder to see that the rider was
drawing nearer. It was a glorious youth on a steed of blood bay; it was Arlen. At the sight of the
sweetness of his mouth I fell in love with him, and I stopped, turned toward him. But then I saw a rush of
shadow, a monstrous, dark, swift-moving thing, unclear. And I realized that it was not he who had hunted
me, that some horror pursued him in his turnтАФ

I awoke with a start and could not sleep again. Within the hour the Gwyneda came to prepare me for
the day.

All the forenoon was spent in lustrations and attentions that I bore with the best dignity I could
command, though the Gwyneda were none too gentle. On first entering my chamber, they seized me and
upended me to examine me. Only when they were determined to their satisfaction that I was what had
been promisedтАФthat is, a virgin, and not bleeding at the timeтАФdid they release me. Then a bath of milk
was prepared, and I was led to it and made to stand in it while pitchers of it were poured over me; it was
cold. Only then, in the rhythm of the pouring, did the Gwyneda break silence, and they spoke not to me
but to their goddess, in incantation.