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

The sound of hoofs dwindled sharply down the track towards the sea. Above my head, between one
wing-beat and the next, the lark's song shut off, and he dropped from the bright silence to his rest in the
grass.

Not far from me a boulder jutted from the turf. I led the horse that way and somehow, from the
boulder's top, scrambled into the saddle. I turned the beast's head east by north for Dimilioc, where the
King's army lay.

2



Gaps in memory can be merciful. I have no recollection of reaching the camp, but when, hours later, I
swam up out of the mists of fatigue and pain I was within doors, and in bed.

I awoke to dusk, and some faint and swimming light that may have been firelight and candle flame; it was
a light hazed with colour and drowned with shadows, threaded by the scent of wood-smoke and, it
seemed distantly, the trickle and splash of water. But even this warm and gentle consciousness was too
much for my struggling senses, and soon I shut my eyes and let myself drown again. I believe that for a
while I thought I was back in the edges of the Otherworld, where vision stirs and voices speak out of the
dark, and truth comes with the light and the fire. But then the aching of my bruised muscles and the fierce
pain in my hand told me that the daylight world still held me, and the voices that murmured across me in
the dusk were as human as I.

"Well, that's that, for the moment. The ribs are the worst of it, apart from the hand, and they'll mend
soon enough; they're only cracked."

I had a vague feeling that I knew the voice. At any rate I knew what he was: the touch on the fresh
bandages was deft and firm, the touch of a professional. I tried to open my eyes again, but the lids were
leaden, gummed together and sticky with sweat and dried blood. Warmth came over me in drowsy
waves, weighting my limbs. There was a sweet, heavy smell; they must have given me poppy, I thought,
or stunned me with smoke before they dressed the hand. I gave up, and let myself drift back from the
shore. Over the dark water the voices echoed, softly.

"Stop staring at him and bring the bowl nearer. He's safe enough in this state, never fear." It was the
doctor again.

"Well, but one's heard such stories." They were speaking Latin, but the accents were different. The
second voice was foreign; not Germanic, nor yet from anywhere on theMiddleSea . I have always been
quick at languages, and even as a child spoke several dialects of Celtic, along with Saxon and a working
knowledge of Greek. But this accent I could not place.Asia Minor , perhaps?Arabia ?

Those deft fingers gently turned my head on the pillow, and parted my hair to sponge the bruises. "Have
you never seen him before?"

"Never. I hadn't imagined him so young."
"Not so young. He must be two and twenty."

"But to have done so much. They say his father the High King Ambrosius never took a step, in the last
year or two, without talking it over with him. They say he sees the future in a candle flame and can win a