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

shreds of legend from his head.

"It's a hard thing to come home to," Alan added gruffly.
 Trevyn lowered his eyes to hide a gleam of joy and wonder. Let Alan think he had been sorrowing. But
he was learning the elfin Sight at last, it seemed. It had never caught him up so strongly before, except
that horrible time when a wolf had given him bad dreams, false dreams. . . . But these just now had been
his own dreams; he felt sure of it.

"I had better go to see my uncle," he muttered.

He climbed the long, spiraling tower stairs, his breath quickened by more than exertion. Hal did not
answer the rap on his door, so the Prince pushed it open. King Hal stood staring westward through his
window bars, his face haggard, his skin drawn into taut folds over the straight lines of his cheekbones. He
did not stir for Trevyn's presence.

"Mireldeyn!" Trevyn called him by the sooth-name, _and in a moment he trembled at his own boldness.
Hal turned slowly and fixed his nephew with a silvery stare. In all the seven ages there had been no one
quite like Mireldeyn, and even Trevyn, who had bounced on his lap not too many years before, could not
fail to feel his greatness.

"Trevyn," Hal remarked. "I am bound for Elwestrand at last. You'll not try to sway me from my destiny,
lad? You are too young for that, I thinkтАФand also, in your own foolish way, too wise."

Trevyn did not know how to react. "Elwestrand is fair, you have told me," he said at last. "But my father
is saddened, my aunt angry and sad."

"I grieve that Alan must grieve." Hal turned away to his window again, his voice cold and tight. "But the
ways of men are strange to me now, and I do not understand his sorrow. Nor can I see any longer what
may be in store for him. But as for your auntтАФshe will find fulfillment that I could never give her. It was
not by her fault that we have been childless,



Trevyn. Ket can better serve her, he who has loved her all these years."

"Ket!" Trevyn's astonishment left him open-mouthed, and for a moment he wondered if Hal was really
mad. Ket, the former outlaw who had never learned to properly ride a horse! He had once been valiant,
Trevyn knew, but now he was only the stooping, gravely courteous countryman who taught archery and
served Alan as seneschal. That he should so regard the Queen!

"Do you think he has stayed in Laueroc for want of choice? He could have had any manor or town in
Isle." Hal skewered Trevyn again with his icy stare. "Nay, do not mistake me, young man. Rosemary has
always been faithful to me. Indeed, I believe she does not know of Ket's devotion; she is too modest to
credit herself with such devotion. And Ket is a man of honor, and my friend."

"But youтАФhas he told you?" Trevyn gasped.

"He knows there is no need to tell me. I saw his love twenty-some years ago, when he and my lady first
met. But she was a lass of sixteen, my betrothed, and he was thirty, with a price on his red head. So he
guarded her well, for my sake as well as her own, and he has cherished her all these years." Hal sighed,