"Mary Stewart - The Arthurian Saga 01 - The Crystal Cave2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

importance.

I felt excitement, and also surprise that apparently I was to be
presented to him; I was used to being kept out of the way in those days.

I stood patiently while Moravik dragged the comb through my hair, and
over my head she and my mother exchanged some quick, breathless talk
which, hardly heeding, I did not understand.

I was listening to the tramp of horses in the yard and the shouting of
men, words here and there coming dearly in a language neither Welsh nor
Latin, but Celtic with some accent like the one of Less Britain, which I
understood because my nurse, Mora- vik, was a Breton, and her language
came to me as readily as my own.

I heard my grandfather's great laugh, and another voice replying.
Then he must have swept the newcomer indoors with him, for the voices
receded, leaving only the jingle and stamp of the horses being led to
the stables.

I broke from Moravik and ran to my mother.

"Who is it?"

"My brother Camlach, the King's son."

She did not look at me, but pointed to the fallen shuttle.

I picked it up and handed it to her.
Slowly, and rather mechanically, she set the loom moving again.

"Is the war over, then?"
"The war has been over a long time. Your uncle has been with the High
King in the south."

"And now he has to come home because my uncle Dyved died?"
Dyved had been the heir, the King's eldest son.
He had died suddenly, and in great pain, of cramps in the stomach, and
Elen his widow, who was childless, had gone back to her father.

Naturally there had been the usual talk of poison, but nobody took it
seriously; Dyved had been well liked, a tough fighter and a careful man,
but generous where it suited.

"They say he'll have to marry. Will he, mother?"

I was excited, important at knowing so much, thinking of the wedding
feast "Will he marry Keridwen, now that my uncle Dyved-"

"What?"