"Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 08 - The Warlock Heretical" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

least on one
wall. The other three were still basketworks of twigs, with a couple of two-man teams busily
spreading more
mud over them. A fence stretched around a quarter of the acre surrounding it, with two more men in
brown robes
working at extending it. Their cowls were thrown back, and sunlight gleamed off the bald spots in
the middle of
their scalps. Around them a third of the meadow had already yielded its long grass to the two
teams of monks

with wheeled plows, each with one steering and two pulling, leaving the dark brown of turned earth
behind them.
"By whose leave do they take the whole meadow for themselves!" Geoffrey cried. Gregory shrugged.
"None said
them nay, brother." Geoffrey strode forward, pushing up his sleeves. "Thou wilt not!" Magnus
caught him by the
collar, then ducked aside from his punch with the ease of long practice. " Tis not thy meadow, to
say yea or nay
to itтАФ'tis the King's!" "Yet it hath been our place of play all our lives!" "As hath the whole
wood, and every
grotto and clearing within it," Magnus reminded. "Surely we can spare one such place for the good
fathers."
"Fathers?" Geoffrey stopped swinging and frowned up at him. Then his eyes widened. "Aye! The
cowls, the
brown robesтАФhow foolish I am not to have seen it!"
"Thou art," Cordelia assured him. "They are monks." Geoffrey turned back to the clearing, puzzled.
"Yet what do
they here? Monks dwell in the monastery, so far to the south. . . . Hist! What comes?"
"What indeed?" Magnus frowned, peering over Geoffrey's head at the meadow.
" 'Tis another band of strangers!" Cordelia exclaimed. "These are not goodly." Gregory's face


file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Chri...arlock%207%20-%20The%20Warlock%20Heretical.txt (2 of 143) [11/1/2004 12:27:20 AM]
 file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Christopher%20Stasheff%20-%20Warlock%207%20-%20The%20Warlock%20Heretical.txt

darkened. They
certainly did not appear to be. They wore grimy clothes, untrimmed beards, and tangled hair, and
they came out
of the forest from several different directions, converging on the monks. Each carried a shield
and a quarterstaff.
One or two had swords.
One of the brown-robes saw them coming and shouted a warning. His fellows looked up, startled,
then leaped to
catch up steel caps and quarterstaves from the long grass. The other plow team did, too, and came
pelting across
the meadow, jamming their caps on their heads. The fencers and plasterers dropped their tools,
caught up caps
and staves, and came running to join the plowmen.
Geoffrey's face darkened. "What manner of monks are these, who bear weapons?"
"Is't not fair, then," Cordelia jibed, "for men of the cloth to defend themselves 'gainst men of