"Swithin, Antony - Perilous Quest for Lyoness 01 - Princes of Sandastre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swithin Antony)

The Perilous Quest for Lyonesse
Book One: PRINCES OF SANDASTRE
by Antony Swithin

Published by Fontana/Collins, June 1990. ISBN 0-00-617938-X

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In the year of Our Lord, 1403, as England smoulders with suppressed rebellion, young Simon Branthwaite sets sail across the Atlantic in search of the lost realm of Lyonesse. His quest will take him to Rockall, a land wreathed in legend; a land of weird beasts and wondrous happenings, of great beauties and terrible dangers. And there begin adventures stranger than the wildest of Simon's imaginings; adventures that will change the course of his life and reshape the land for ever...



FOREWORD
Though the immense riches of the mines of Reschora and Kelcestre have by now made it one of the wealthiest countries on earth, the Republic of Rockall remains remarkably little known. Its unique flora and fauna arouse profound interest among naturalists and its rocks condition the thinking of geologists about the structure of the whole North Atlantic basin; yet few naturalists or geologists have been fortunate enough to visit this sea-girt realm.

Indeed, Rockall is in many ways an unusual country. Its eight-house parliament is a model for study by political scientists, yet the operations of that parliament are little understood in other democracies and nowhere emulated. It continues to rely upon animal power and steam haulage for road and rail transportation and employs battery-powered helicopters for emergency services and for recreation. Petroleum is used only to power long-distance aeroplanes. Yet surely so wealthy a country could readily afford to import petroleum for surface transport also? Its refusal to do so has long been thought an inexplicable eccentricity. Only now, as world petroleum resources diminish, is that refusal coming to seem wise, even admirable.

Of all European countries, Rockall has the fewest roads, the most green countryside, the most benign and unspoiled shores, the least trodden and most challenging mountains; yet of all countries, it welcomes tourists from abroad least. Yes, exchange rates against the stable Rockalese currency are extremely high, but that is not the major problem. Rather it is that the Rockalese are so self-contained and so contented a people. They are not great travellers themselves, for they like their own land too well to feel obliged to visit others. Nor do they see any need to allow their land to be submerged by tourists. Why should they be subjected to the tiresome demands and unacceptable prejudices of foreigners, when they are wealthy enough to need neither Deutschmarks nor dollars to prop up their economy? Why allow their shores and mountains to be spoiled by high-rise hotels, constructed merely for the accommodation of strangers? Of all visas, that for Rockall is perhaps hardest to obtain; and thus is the peace of that land protected.

Geographically, Rockall is the farthest-flung of European countries, isolated by the turbulent Atlantic from the expansionist ambitions of kings and the greedy philosophies of clerics and republics. Even during the present century, Rockall has remained a country apart. The First World War certainly produced serious upheavals in the nascent republic, yet outside involvements were very largely avoided; and whilst, in the Second World War, Rockall did play a major role in the struggle against the fascist powers, afterwards it withdrew again within its own bounds. It gives financial support generously to United Nations projects; but Rockall is rarely active in that political arena and, indeed, keeps as much detached from world politics as can be contrived. Thus, whilst other Europeans, arriving as settlers or as fugitives, have played so prominent a role in the history of Rockall, the Rockalese scarcely figure at all in that of the rest of Europe. In consequence, in histories of the continent of which it is the westernmost part, Rockall receives scant attention.

Yet in the National Library of its capital, Rockall Peak, and in the ancient archives of the castle of Sandarro, there are to be found many dramatic and remarkable stories of heroism and adventure. Most of them, to be sure, are written in the difficult languages of that land and have not hitherto been translated into more familiar tongues. To those libraries, I am fortunate enough to have been granted access; and it is my aim, in this book and any that may come after, to retell some of those stories.

That which follows is taken from a lengthy manuscript appended to one of the Sandastrian Books of the Years--that long series of volumes spanning over fifteen hundred years and unrivalled, as a continuous record, by the archives of any other country. The manuscript was written by an Englishman, yet he wrote in the Sandastrian language and characters that had become familiar to him. To translate it into the English of his day would be as artificial as, and much more difficult than, rendering it in our modern tongue. Consequently I have adopted the latter course, though I have retained mediaeval words that have no close modern equivalents and have striven to avoid inappropriate images.

I have employed English equivalents to Rockalese words, wherever such exist; thus "Rockalese" is used instead of Rokalnen, "Sandastrian" and "Baroddan" instead of Sandastren and Baroddnen, "Fachane and Fachnese" instead of Fakhhayin and Fakhniis, and so forth. I have done my translating informally and have at times inserted explanations or descriptions that the writer omitted; yet I shall tell the story in the first person, as he did, so that Rockall and his adventures there may be viewed through his eyes.

ANTONY SWITHIN, Chronicler.


Chapter One
THE WIND FROM THE EAST
News of the battle of Shrewsbury blew east with the wind--and that wind carried away for ever the life I had known. Soon I was to be whisked out of my quiet life and across the seas, to a land and into adventures stranger than the very wildest of my imaginings.

Mine had not been a bad sort of life, on the whole. It was true that my mother had died at my birth but, since I had never known her, I could not miss her. For my father, though, her memory was ever brought alive in me. Her family, the Watertons who had been for so long seneschals of Pontefract Castle, were a small, dark, fervent race--some said, with Welsh blood in them--and she was a typical Waterton. My father treasured a portrait of her, painted for him on a roll of parchment by a wandering artist. He carried that portrait with him always and had shown it to me so often that I knew her features well. She had been as slim as I, with the same dark hair and brown eyes, even the same expression--an intent eagerness that was also shy. In contrast, my elder and only brother was as large-boned and blond as my father himself--the Branthwaites had always been big.

Since brother Richard was a true Branthwaite and would be his heir, my father had seen to it that he was fully trained for that part. When seven years old, Richard had been sent off to be a page to Lord Furnival in Sheffield Castle where, as well as learning the arts of courtesy and service, he had been given a good grounding in the martial arts. Afterwards he had constantly accompanied my father, be it to court or to camp. He had seen service in the marches of Wales, during the rising of Glendower. Following that campaign, Richard had been made armiger. Later, as one of the squires of the great Hotspur himself, he had fought the Scots at Homildon Hill when Earl Douglas was taken. Richard could carry himself with the pride of a proven warrior and might hope soon to be knighted.

Very different had been my own upbringing. Perhaps because I reminded him so vividly of the wife he had loved so deeply, my father had kept me always by him--always, that is, save when he went off to the wars. Whenever father travelled to other manor-houses or to court, I was allowed to act as page with the other boys of my age; but I had not been sent to live and learn away from home, as Richard and most of those other boys had been.

During those visits and at home, I had learned some part the skills proper to a page; how to serve at table, to recognize and blazon coats of arms, to play backgammon and chess, to sing songs to citole and psaltery, to hawk and even to hunt. Yet I was not allowed even to begin upon that other and greater part of the training of a page--his training in the arts of war.

In falconry and in venery, yes, I had certain abilities that father could admire. There was my skill with animals, for instance. The most fractious falcon, the fiercest dog and the most rebellious stallion would alike respond to my voice and touch, becoming tranquil and obedient. As a result, I was an able falconer and a confident rider to hounds, out-racing and out-jumping all but the very ablest of the field. Father was very proud of this, even when he was anxious about my safety. Yet, despite my ability in riding, I was not permitted to try my skill with the wooden lance in the practice tourneys that the other pages so much enjoyed.

Father was proud also of my skill when hunting on foot. I had a quick eye for tracks and for those slighter disturbances of grass and plants that told of the passage of animals. Moreover, since I was light in build and quiet in movement, I could find and follow deer or wild boar and approach grouse or bustard with a facility that even John Stacey, father's huntsman on our rough upland demesne, could not surpass.

Yet certain of my attitudes puzzled both John and he: and perhaps these were additional reasons why I was not permitted to progress to that second stage of a page's training. Why was it that, when I went out hunting on foot alone, I brought home game so seldom? They did not understand and I felt unable to explain. The truth was that I had come to find pleasure in merely observing animals and birds and learning of their lives; in watching the hares cavorting under the March wind, the snipe drumming its bounds above the steep fields, the fox-cubs rolling and playing at the mouth of their earth or the roebuck feeding in the coverts. I could not account, even to myself, for this abnormal attitude of preferring to watch creatures alive than to kill them--what, after all, was the purpose of animals and birds, save to provide sport for gentlemen? - so I did not try.

Why also was it that, having ridden in the front rank of the hunt till the very end, I seemed never in evidence at the finish? When the unfortunate quarry was being torn to pieces or given the "coup-de-grace", I seemed never to be there. This, father could not understand. Surely I must take pleasure, as a gentleman's son should, in such spectacles? Yet it seemed I did not; how odd!

From whatever causes--his lack of confidence in me, his over-protectiveness toward me--father would neither send me away from home to be trained in the techniques and strategies of combat nor, despite his own considerable skills, give such training to me himself. Even a basic instruction in swordsmanship was denied to me.