"Edward Whittemore - The Jerusalem Quartet 01 - Sinai Tapestry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whittemore Edward)

have sensed irrevocable changes afoot when they saw the eldest of their wards, the future lord, spending
his afternoons in the deserted library.

The awful truth became clear when the boy was eleven, on the winter night set aside each year for the
family's heritage to be recounted by the older generation to the younger. On that night everyone gathered
in front of the great fireplace after dinner, the aunts and uncles with their snifters of brandy, sitting
solemnly in large chairs, the boys and girls absolutely still on cushions on the floor. Outside the wind
howled. Inside the little children stared wide-eyed at the crackling logs as the ancient lore of the place
was recounted.

A shadowy medieval monastery, began an aunt or an uncle. Hooded figures thrusting yellow tapers aloft.
Chants in archaic syllables, incense and bats, rites at the foot of a black altar.

Underground chambers from the age of King Arthur, whispered another. Masked knights riding through
the mists in eternal pursuit of invisible combat.

Roman legions fresh from the land of the pharaohs, hinted a third. Barbaric foreign gods and pagan battle
standards. Luxurious baths wreathed in steam behind the walls of sumptuous palaces.

Druidical rituals, suggested a fourth. Naked priests painted blue clinging to mistletoe, a single towering
oak in a lost grove, apparitions in the gloom on the moors. From the deeper recesses of the forest, eerie
birdlike cries.

And long before that, whispered another, massive stones placed on the plains in a mystical pattern. The
stones so gigantic no ordinary people could have transported them. Who were these unknown people
and what was the purpose of their abstract designs? Yes truly we must ponder these enigmas for they are
the secrets of our ancestors, to be recalled tonight as so often over the centuries.

Indeed, murmured an uncle. So it has always been and so it must be. These undying marvels are hidden
in the ancient library of our manor, reared by the first Duke of Dorset, and there lies the secret within all
of us, the impenetrable Strongbow Mystery.

A rustle passed around the fireplace. The children shivered and huddled closer together as the wind
whined. No one dared think of the maze of lost passageways spiraling down into the earth beneath them.

A thin voice broke the silence, the voice of the future lord.

No.

Sitting erect, farther from the fire than anyone else, the boy gazed gravely at the heavy swords suspended
above the mantle.

No, he repeated, that's not quite correct. In the last year I've read all the books in the library and there's
nothing like that there. The first Plantagenet Strongbow was a simple man who went to Ireland and had
the usual success slaughtering unarmed peasants, then retired here to polish his armor and do some
farming. The early books he collected were about armor, later there were a few dealing with barnyard
matters. So it seems the family mystery is simply that no one has ever read a book from the family library.