"Springer, Nancy - Book Of The Isle 3 - Sable Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

In a small chamber of the royal palace at Kantukal sat the king of Tokar, Rheged by name, and his counselor Wael. Rheged was a lean, long-armed man of middle age. Sparse, flabby flesh draped his loose frame; his look was hungry. He hungered insatiably, though not for food, and he could be as dangerous as a starving wolf. Wael, his advisor, was a shrunken wizard of incalculable years, a scholar of intrigue and the arts of influence as well as a sorcerer. The two men found little to like in each other and less to trust, but their mutual greed for power bound them almost as securely as love, for the time. They hunched in council over a figurehead in form of a leaping, gilded wooden wolf.
"It seemed faultless," Wael breathed in his soft old voice, hypnotic as the hissing of a serpent. "A young prince must perforce fancy a fairy boat of gold, and once he was on it, all was easy. I drew him here more surely than if I held him by a rope in my hand. Who would have thought it would shipwreck? Never has such a storm been seen in the spring of the year. In autumn, perhaps-"
"Ay, ay," Rheged interrupted impatiently, "no one can fault your scheme, laugh though they might that we took

armed men to the harbor to await a swimming wolf! They do not smile to my face, not unless they wish to die quite slowly, but I cannot stop the snickers behind my back. But that is past; the question now is, what to do about Isle? It is small use to us that the heir is dead, if his body cannot be found."
"Perhaps he is* not yet dead," Wael mused. "If he got ashore, he could be anywhere by now, it has been almost two weeks. But we should hear news of him, for he would cut a strange figure in these parts. Perhaps he has been enslaved. It would be wise to check the markets."
Rheged nodded sardonically and made a note.
"If I could only have something that belonged to him, a piece of clothing or a knife or even a coin," Wael went on intensely, "I could draw him to me, dead or alive, as surely as if-"
"As if you held him by a rope in your hand," Rheged finished sourly. "What of it? Am I to send to Isle, now, for an article of his apparel?"
"Nay, nay, Majesty, send men to search the beaches! Offer (rewards enough to render them honest. And send spies throughout the realm to find news of him. Offer rewards for that, also."
"You make plentifully free with my gold," muttered Rheged. "Even so, it shall be done. It will be worth much gold if I can hold that prince my hostage."
"Or even," whispered Wael, "your sacrifice at the altar of the Wolf."
"As you will," Rheged growled. "But how is that to help my invasion of Isle?"
"That upstart little country, Isle!" Wael laughed softly, a wheezing, murky sound. "King, I could have given you that victory a dozen times by now. But it is the game itself that brings more joy, and the game has just begun, do you see? Just begun!" Wael lurched forward in his intensity. "And you know wolves belong to the winter. We will strike then."
"If you say so, wizard," the monarch wearily assented. "As you say."
The slave market was nothing more than a large cobbled clearing set amid the houses and shops of a place called Jabul.

Here the traders came with their wares at the dawn of the market day, and even before the arrival of the buyers the place was crowded. Thousands of human beings filled it-an eerie gathering, Trevyn thought, for the slaves hardly moved or spoke. The silence of despair hung over them all. About half of the slaves were women, bound in their own strings apart from the men, many with babes at their breasts. Trevyn stared, gaped indeed, for they were as naked as himself. The sight did not thrill him so much as dismay him; they were as beaten, as filthy, and as bereft of dignity as he. Suddenly he thought of Meg, imagining her in such company, and his face turned hard as stone. He stood like rage immobilized while the buyers arrived and looked him over, feeling his limbs for soundness as if he were a draft animal.
"Here is a man looking for a mute!" one of the traders cried to another, leading a buyer through the lines of slaves.
"Then here is his mute!" shouted the other, striding to Trevyn and jerking him forward. "Right here, sir, a fine, strong fellow!"
"Are you quite sure he is unable to speak?" the buyer asked, addressing the slave trader with distaste he made no effort to conceal: He was a slender young man, a bit shorter than Trevyn, with a high, pale forehead over eloquent eyes. The noisy slave merchant did not seem to mind his evident distrust.
"Why, he's not made a sound these two weeks past," the slaver blustered, "not even in pain. Here, let me show ye." He grabbed Trevyn's finger and wrenched it back, but the young man gasped and struck his hand away.
"That will not be necessary," he said imperiously. "I take it, then, that he has not lost his tongue?"
"Nay," answered the slaver, crestfallen. Then he brightened. "But if ye want him, sir, I'll take the tongue out of him for ye, right enough-"
"Great goddess, nay!" The man was emphatic, and Trevyn allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Mischance enough if it was born in him." The young man turned to Trevyn, studying him, not poking at him as the others had done, but looking into his eyes. Trevyn met his gaze steadily, and the man nodded, satisfied. "How much?" he asked.

"Softly, sir, he's a handsome piece; if I put him on the block he'll bring me a pretty price."
"I cannot wait for the bidding; I have business at home. Name your price."
The slave trader named a price. It was high, but the young man doled out $he gold without demur. The slaver undid Trevyn from the string, leaving his hands tied. ,;
"He is mine now," the young man said.
"Ay." ?
"To do with as I like."
"Ay, to be sure!" The slave merchant laughed and cracked his whip.
"Good." The young man brought out a slender knife, such as scholars use to sharpen their pens with, and began carefully to cut Trevyn's bonds.
The slaver shouted, and his face went white. "Nay, young master! He's a wild 'un-he'll go to kill me!" But the thongs were cut, and the young man stepped back without comment. Trevyn rubbed his chafed wrists and studied the shaking Slaver, who was backing cautiously away. No courage in the man without his fellows, it seemed! He would gladly have settled his score with this tormenter, and it was no cold caution that restrained-him. He could not say why he stayed his hand, unless it was somehow because of the young man who stood quietly beside him. He could have leveled him with a single blow, by the looks of him, but the fellow had freed him fearlessly. . . . Trevyn turned and nodded farewell to the old man who had befriended him. Then he looked to his new master.
"Here," the young man said, handing him a sort of loincloth; hardly the raiment of a prince, but Trevyn put it on gladly. His feet were healed by now and his back mostly healed. The traders had been obliged to tend to him, not wanting to bring him to market looking like a scandal. Still, the young man winced and muttered to himself when he saw the stripes.
"This way," he said when they were both ready. They walked together through the marketplace. "My name is Emrist," he told Trevyn. "Not that it matters, I suppose," he added vaguely. "Though, of course, you can hear. . . ."

They turned out of the marketplace into a crooked alleyway that wound up terraced slopes between houses perched precariously on their foundations. At the top of the steep hill they paused for breath. If Trevyn had looked back, and if he had known, he could have seen Rheged's men entering the marketplace to search for him.
He and his new master traversed a ragged country cut by rocky ridges into patchwork gardens, vineyards, and orchards. They stopped often to rest, for Emrist was not strong. Toward noon they shared bread and cheese and a flask of weak wine. It seemed to Trevyn that Emrist was not a rich man. He went afoot, though easily tired, and his tunic and sandals looked plain and worn. Trevyn wondered how he had got the gold to buy him, and, indeed, why he had bought him at all. For his manner was gentle, and he did not seem to be the sort of person who would lightly own another.
By early afternoon they had moved into wilder country, where habitations were fewer and growth cluttered the meadows until they were really young forests. The look of the land made Trevyn wary, and he was not entirely surprised when robbers ran at them, screeching, out of the brush. There were four of the rustic brigands, each armed with a wicked-looking sword. If Trevyn had been by himself he might have run; his fray with the slavers had taught him caution. But there was Emrist to be thought of. ... Trevyn lunged under a whistling sword, wrested the weapon from its owner, aware that Emrist had already fallen. He killed the robber with a swift stroke to the throat and turned on the other three, frantically beating them back from Emrist's prostrate form. In a moment they rallied and circled him; he took some cuts then. But he had been trained to use the sword against odds and soon felled them. Though it sickened him to do so, he made certain that each robber was dead before he turned his back on them.
Emrist was sitting in the roadway, holding his head and looking pale as a wraith. "What are you?" he whispered. "You fought like a King's man."
Trevyn laid down the bloody sword before he went near him, not wishing to alarm him. He kneeled and probed his

master with careful fingers. A welt was rising on Emrist's head, but nothing else was wrong that Trevyn could find. Yet Emrist reeled and went limp under his touch. Though he hated the thought of staying any longer in these unfriendly parts, Trevyn could see nothing for it but to make camp. He slung Emrist over his shoulders and carried him into the woods, looking for shelter.
If it had not been for fear, the night would have seemed luxurious to Trevyn. He found everything he needed on the bodies of the slain robbers. In the shelter of a rocky scar he made a fire with their flint and steel. He set rabbit snares with the lacings of their sandals. Later he warmed himself against the night chill in a looted cloak while he carved his dinner with a looted knife. It was the first fresh meat he had eaten in over two months. Bits of bread, too, had been in the robbers' pockets. Trevyn saved them for the morrow.
Throughout the night he sat by the fire with naked sword in hand, starting at every shadow. Strange chance, he mused, that he, a king's son, should have become a robber of robbers. At his side lay Emrist, also wrapped in "borrowed" cloaks. From time to time the young man moaned and gazed half fearfully until Trevyn soothed him with a glance and a touch of cooling water. Strangest of chance that bound him to this slaveholding Tokarian! Not that he could ever desert a helpless man, but-was a courteous word so rare in this eastern land, a friendly glance so precious, that Emrist had sent such a flood of comfort to his heart?
Emrist awoke fully in the morning, and though he sat up painfully, the dazed look was gone from his eyes. Trevyn gave him the bread and the little wine that remained. He ate slowly, but finished it all. "Did you not sleep at all?" he asked.
Trevyn cast a wry glance at the woods all around them.
"Ay, it is an evil place," Emrist agreed. "I would rather be far away from here." He hesitated. "Good friend, it should be no more than a half-day's journey-do you think you could help me home?"