"Nancy Springer - Isle 05 - The Golden Swan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

"That is Dair," Trevyn said. "He who found you by the sea."

"I owe him my thanks, then." Frain looked at me doubtfully and did not offer the thanks he said he
owed.

"We found no coracle," Trevyn added after a moment.

"It leaked, and then it sank," Frain said in a matter-of-fact way. "I am not much of a sailor, and I had not
carried enough food, either. Your Majesty, I am ravenous."

"We will get you food. Call me Trevyn."

"I can't. Anyone can see you are a True King."

The doctor bustled out to see about the food, and Trevyn sat smiling at Frain in amusement and growing
affection. There was an air of fine, gallant bravery about Frain, and yet a modesty as well, so marked that
it was almost shyness. An odd blend. I felt my heart go out to him for the oddity of himтАФwell, it had
gone out to him before I knew him.

"Why, then," said Trevyn, "call me Lord."

"Thank you, my lord. My brother, TirellтАФhe is a True King too."

I would not have thought there could be two such kings in the world. This was either madness or the
touch of the goddess. Trevyn gave Frain a keen glance. "You mistook me for him a moment ago," he
said.

"In the dark." Frain smiled, a warm smile and very good to look on. "You are as comely as he, but his
hair is as black as yours is fair, Lord, black as jet, and his face white with scarcely a hint of color to it,
and his eyes blazing blue, ice blue. Women pine with longing for him." Frain's smile faded. "But that is the
least of him," he added quietly. "I know the power of the True King. This is a magical place, Lord, is it
not?"

Trevyn only nodded. I believe he was astonished.

"Then perhaps you can understand," Frain said slowly, "when I say I have met with a peculiar sort of
enchantment, or perhaps a doom. I have traveled seven years since I left Vale, my lord, but they have not
aged me. I have not aged a day since the day I was foolish enough to bathe in Lady Death's mirroring
lake. I was fifteen then, and I am nearly twenty-four now. But I am still fifteenтАФin effect."

Trevyn had seen too many marvels in his life to doubt anyone. He merely nodded.

"You do not look fifteen," he said with a scholar's interest. "Maybe seventeen or so." Frain was sturdy,
muscular even, and handsome in spite of the crippled arm.

"I was well grown." A tinge of bitterness seeped into his voice. "A child in the body of a man."

"And now you have eternal youth." Trevyn sat back, musing, gazing at the stranger. "People judge that to