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

Hal sighed. "Not even an elf-boat can weather the winter storms on that wide sea. You must wait until spring, at least. Spring in Isle, I mean."
Trevyn jumped up, startling the wading birds, though not into flight. "While my father and my people suffer under Wael's treachery. . . . Thunder!" He turned on Hal in sudden consternation. "Do you have the brooch and the parchment safe?"
"I have the parchment, to my dismay. It is written in the court language of old Nemeton. An ugly reminder. But the" brooch was not on the boat."
"Tides and tempests!" Trevyn groaned. "If Wael has it again, then all is lost."
"I dare say the sea guards it well," Hal comforted.
"She guarded it ill before. Mother of mercy, why did I not kill Wael when I had the chance!"
"Mother of mercy, why didn't you?" Hal threw the question back at him.
"Aene knows," replied Trevyn bitterly.
"Very true'. "You were sent to Tokar in good time to know your enemy, but still kept from Wael's grasp. So you took it

into your head to be a mute-forsooth!-which chance brought you straightway to the rare man who could help you. And that the old slave should have come to Rheged's palace-most wonderful. Ay, Aene has been at work." Hal searched Trevyn's face, and his voice softened. "I know it was a hard journey, Trev. But you must accept your scars as I have learned to accept. Everyone bears scars."
"I reproach the One for Emrist's sake," Trevyn snapped, "not my own. If only he could have been spared. ..."
"You loved him well," Hal said gently.
"Ay. I think I could scarcely have loved him better if I had known him a lifetime, and I would gladly have befriended him that long."
"Yet you say he was not unwilling to die."
"When I left him." Trevyn turned tormented eyes to meet Hal's. "I don't know what they did to him after I had gone."
"Someone so frail would have died quickly." Hal grasped Trevyn with his gaze. "For whom, really, is it that you mourn, Alberic? Is it not, in truth, for yourself?"
Trevyn clenched his fists, but Hal went on, gentle even in his relentless understanding. "Do not think I trifle with your grief. More than one brave man has died in torment on my account."
Wild white swans sailed down between the trees, fleeting and lovely as spirits, if spirits could be seen. They skimmed past, singing softly among themselves, and disappeared over the waves before Trevyn spoke. Truth had struck him out of Hal's words like a blow to the heart, and it was with trembling voice that he brought himself to admit it. "I-I shall be so much alone, Uncle. I shall never have another such friend. And Father shall leave me before long-" He stopped, shaken by his own sureness. Hal nodded.
"Ay. The Sight is strong in you, Alberic."
Trevyn settled wearily back to his place by Hal's side, feeling weak and not understanding why. "Even if I make it back to Isle, to Megan," he murmured, "and even if she still loves me, and forgives me, and will have me, I shall be alone. Though woman's love counts for much joy."
"Much joy," agreed Hal softly, looking straight out to sea. "Nearly every night I dream of my sweet Rosemary. . . .

How I hope Ket gives her a babe, Trev. She is Isle's nurturer, the Rowan Lady of the Forest; with an heir she will be fulfilled at last. And Alan should come to me, as you have said. Far better fortune than I deserve. I was always a coward in love. . . . Bold enough in body, but a coward in my heart. Nemeton taught me early how love can be used for a torment, and I suppose I never learned better. Coming here, I thought I could not bear the pain of parting from you all. So I stilled my love, and left the pain to others."
"We understood," Trevyn protested. Hal glanced at him with a tiny smile.
"Did you? I doubt it; not Alan, anyway. ... He is too great of heart to understand, but perhaps he will forgive. How I wish I could tell him that I love him." Hal's voice shook.
"I will tell him," said Trevyn quietly. "But will you not be able to tell him yourself, Uncle, when he comes here?"
Hal could not, or would not, answer. They sat, the two of them, side by side, and watched the sun approach, a fiery wheel out of the azure east-the edge of the west to all the rest of the world. They watched Menwy's dark dragons come up out of the sea to meet it, shaking their sinuous necks, sending up plumes of regal gold and purple spray. They circled, and the blazing disc, its gentler back turned toward Elwestrand, went down in their midst with a mighty roar of water and a bronze glow and with clouds of violet steam. Elwestrand lay beyond the sunset, as Hal had often said. The dragons plunged and vanished in a fountain of amethyst roil; twilight spread. Elwestrand went misty and charcoal gray, but still softly lit by the glow from the depths of the sea.
"He must swim all the way back by dawn," Hal said, stirring at last.
"He does so every day," Trevyn complained, annoyed by Hal's evasions. "Uncle, will you still not tell me if I am going back to Isle?"
Hal studied the darkening, pale-crested waves. "I do not know."
"You call me Alberic," cried Trevyn querulously, "and you speak of the Sight, and you say you do not know?"
"The Sight is a guide, nothing more. It is like a dream,

which deeds must make real. You must live out your own destiny j Trevyn. You must stay here, really stay, before you will be able to go."
"Say you will help me go, at least."
"I cannot say even that."
Trevyn sat staring at his uncle in perplexity. Hal would not return his gaze. Big, soft stars, like snowflakes, came out in the charcoal sky while they waited. A slender crescent moon took form atop Elundelei mountain.
"Why do you think you were brought here?" Hal broke silence at last.
"I can't tell! There is no sense to it* So that you can read me the parchment?" Trevyn laughed harshly. "That will not take until spring."
"Ay, it is for your knowledge, but in greater part, I think, it is for your healing." Hal turned to Trevyn at last, his voice soft with pity. "You have supped too full of sorrows, Trevyn. Put the cup from you a while. There is peace for you here. Taste it."
"How can I," Trevyn shouted, "when you talk riddles and will not meet my eyes? When you will give me no assurance?"
Hal sighed and wordlessly sent a flutter of plinset notes like pale green moths into the night; his instrument never lay far from his hand. A figure took form in the darkness of the beach, walking toward them. The man came and joined them, facing them, sitting cross-legged in the sand. An unaccountable trembling took hold of Trevyn.
"Emrist!" he whispered, though the stranger bore scarcely any resemblance to Emrist. He was slender, almost boyish, with dark, straight hair and coal-black eyes burning out of his fair face.
"Nay," he replied, "I am Bevan. I was in Emrist for a while before he died." His was the sweetest voice Trevyn had ever heard, manly and melodious, even lovelier than Hal's. "As I have been in others from time to time," he added, with a grave, moonlit smile at that other star-son, the Sunset King.
"I knew it!" Trevyn yelped. "Why-why would you not tell me?"
"Emrist could not know. He was himself, as he told you, and very brave. ... I am not Emrist, Prince, though he is in

me as I was in him. . . . How well I remember his love for you." Trevyn felt the touch of dark eyes. "I, myself, do not love you, not yet, but I remember. And nay, he did not suffer much at the end."
"It seems to me," Trevyn grumbled distractedly, "that everyone knows the pattern of my life except myself."