"Mary Stewart - The Arthurian Saga 04 - The Wicked Day2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

THE WICKED DAY By the same author mary
stewart's merlin trilogy THE LAST ENCHANTMENT
THE HOLLOW HILLS THE CRYSTAL CAVE
Mary Stewart
THE WICKED DAY
William Morrow and Company, I New
York
Copyright [*curren] 1983 by Mary Stewart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the Publisher. Inquiries should be addressed
to William Morrow and Company, Inc., 105
Madison Avenue, New York, N.y.
10016.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 0-688-02507-
To Geordie Haddington with deep affection
CONTENTS
Prologue 11 book i: The Boy from the
Sea 21 book n: The Witch's Sons 137
book ill: The Wicked Day 231 Epilogue
305 The Legend 306 Author's Note 311
PROLOGUE
"Merlin is dead." It was no more than a whisper,
and the man who breathed it was barely at arm's length from
the woman, his wife, but the walls of the cottage's
single room seemed to catch and throw the sentence on like
a whispering gallery. And on the woman the effect was
as startling as if he had shouted. Her hand, which had
been rocking the big cradle beside the turf fire,
jerked sharply, so that the child curled under the blankets
woke, and whimpered. For once she ignored him.
Her blue eyes, incongruously pale and bright in
a face as brown and withered as dried seaweed, showed a
shifting mixture of hope, doubt and fear. There was
no need to ask her man where he had got the news.
Earlier that day she had seen the sail of the trading
ship standing in towards the bay where, above the
cluster of dwellings that formed the only township on the
island, the queen's new house stood, commanding the main
harbour. The fishermen at their nets beyond the headland were
wont to pull close in to an incomer's course and
shout for news. Her mouth opened as if a hundred
questions trembled there, but she asked only one. "Can it
really be true?" "Aye, this time it's true. They
swore it." One of the woman's hands went to her
breast, making the sign against enchantment. But she still