"Nancy Springer - Isle 03 - The Sable Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

The stranger, a youth of about his own age, met his angry eyes coolly. "Why so?"



Trevyn almost sputtered at the calm question. Did the dolt not know that he was Trevyn son of Alan of
Laueroc, that he was Prince of Isle and Welas, sole heir of the Sun Kings? The elwedeyn horses had
been the special pride of the Crown ever since his kindred the elves had presented them, before his birth.
No uninstructed hand was permitted to touch them. Indeed, they would not lightly suffer the touch of any
hand. The royal family commanded their love through the use of the Old Language that had come down
to them from the Beginning. . . . Quietly, Trevyn ordered the chestnut filly away from the stranger. It
unnerved him that she permitted that hand upon her at all.

The stranger looked up at him with eyes like pebbles, expressionless. "Why did you do that? Are these
horses yours?"

"Ay, they are mine," replied Trevyn, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. Perhaps the yokel was a
half-wit. There was something odd about his face.

"You are a fool to say so." The fellow turned away indifferently and stroked another horse, a
cream-colored one. "These horses belong to no one."

Trevyn's temper flared, all the more so because the other was right, in a sense. Galled, he sprang down
from his mount and jerked the stranger by the arm. "Get away, I say!"

Still expressionless, the youth pulled from his grasp and lashed back with a closed fist. In an instant, both
of them were flailing' at each other, then rolling in a tussle on the grass. Trevyn wore a sword, and after a
bit he wished he could honorably use it. The stranger was as hard and resilient as an axe haft, and his
blows hurt.

Before the fight reached a conclusion, however, the combatants found themselves hauled apart. "Now
what," inquired a quiet voice, "is the cause of this?"

Trevyn blinked out of a blackened eye. It was his uncle, Hal, the King of the Silver Sun; and though he
did not look angry, Trevyn hated to cause him sorrow. Trevyn's father, King Alan, fated him as well, and
he looked angry enough for two.

"Surely," Hal remarked, "this row must have had a beginning?"



"He was bothering the horses," Trevyn accused, and pointed, childlike, at the stranger.

"The horses don't look bothered," Alan scoffed harshly.

The horses, apparently pleased by the excitement, had formed a circle of curious heads. The chestnut
filly stretched her neck and nuzzled the stranger youth's hand.

Hal and Alan exchanged a surprised glance. "Fellow," Alan addressed the stranger, "what is your
name?"