"Mary Stewart - The Arthurian Saga 02 - The Hollow Hills" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

He stared. "Why?"

I regarded him for a moment. He was standing near the mouth of the cave, against the sunset, just as he
had come in from his trip across the hill to the shepherd's hut. He was still clutching the osier basket
which had held the salves. It held a small bundle now, wrapped in a clean linen cloth. The shepherd's
wife, who lived across in the next valley, sent bread up weekly to her man; some of this Abba regularly
sent on to me. I could see the boy's fists clenched bone-white on the handle of the basket. He was tense,
as angry and fretting as a fighting dog held back in the slips. There was something more here, I was sure,
than homesickness, or disappointment at missing an adventure.

"Put that basket down, for goodness' sake," I said, "and come in. That's better. Now, sit down. It's time
that you and I talked. When I accepted your service, I did not do so because I wanted someone to scour
the cooking pots and carry gifts from Abba's wife on baking day. Even if I am content with my life here
on Bryn Myrddin, I'm not such a fool as to think it contents you тАФ or would do so for long. We are
waiting, Ralf, no more. We have fled from danger, both of us, and healed our hurts, and now there is
nothing to do but wait."

"For the Queen's childbed? Why?"

"Because as soon as he is born, the Queen's son will be given to me to care for."

He was silent for a full minute before he said, sounding puzzled: "Does my grandmother know this?"

"I think she suspects that the child's future lies with me. When I last spoke with the King, on that night at
Tintagel, he told me he would not acknowledge the child who would be born. I think this is why the
Queen has sent for me."

"But...not to acknowledge his eldest son? You mean he will send him away? Will the Queen agree? A
baby тАФ surely they would never send it to you? How could you keep it? And how can you even know it
will be a boy?"

"Because I had a vision, Ralf, that night in Tintagel. After you had let us in through the postern gate, while
the King was with Ygraine, and Ulfin kept guard outside the chamber, you diced with the porter in the
lodge by the postern. Do you remember?"

"How could I ever forget? I thought that night would never end."

I did not tell him that it had not ended yet. I smiled. "I think I felt the same, while I waited alone in the
guardroom. It was then that I saw тАФ was shown тАФ for certain why God had required me to do as I had
done, shown for sure that my prophecies had been true. I heard a sound on the stairs, and went out of
the guard-room onto the landing. I saw Marcia, your grandmother, coming down the steps towards me
from the Queen's room, carrying a child. And though it was only March, I felt the chill of midwinter, and
then I saw the stairs and the shadows clear through her body, and knew it was a vision. She put the child
into my arms and said, 'Take care of him.' She was weeping. Then she vanished, and the child too, and
the winter's chill went with her. But this was a true picture, Ralf. At Christmas I shall be there, waiting,
and Marcia will hand the Queen's son into my care."

He was silent for a long time. He seemed awed by the vision. But then he said, practically: "And I?
Where do I come into this? Is this why my grandmother told me to stay with you and serve you?"