The Complete Tamuli Trilogy: Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, The Hidden City. David Eddings

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ come to Atan so that this dear child of ours may lay aside the silver of childhood and assume the gold that is her just due in the Rite of Passage. Let us join our hands and our hearts, Elene and Atan, Styric and Tamul, in the ceremony which will raise our child to adulthood, and in that ceremony, may our hearts be united, for in this child, we are all made as one.’

      As Norkan translated, an approving murmur went through the crowd of Atans, a murmur that swelled to a roar, and Queen Betuana, her eyes filled with tears, stepped down from the dais and embraced the pale blonde queen of Elenia. Then she spoke very briefly to the crowd.

      ‘What did she say?’ Stragen asked Oscagne.

      ‘She advised her people that anyone who offered your queen any impertinence would answer to her personally. It’s no idle threat, either. Queen Betuana’s one of the finest warriors in all of Atan. I hope you appreciate your wife, Sparhawk. She’s just scored a diplomatic coup of the highest order. How the deuce did she learn that the Atans are sentimentalists? If she’d talked for another three minutes, the whole square would have been awash with tears.’

      ‘Our queen’s a perceptive young woman,’ Stragen said rather proudly. ‘A good speech is always drawn on a community of interest. Our Ehlana’s a genius when it comes to finding things she has in common with her audience.’

      ‘So it would seem. She’s ensured one thing, let me tell you.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘The Atans will give Atana Mirtai a Rite of Passage such as comes along only once or twice in a generation. She’ll be a national heroine after an introduction like that. The singing will be tumultuous.’

      ‘That’s probably more or less what my wife had in mind,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘She loves to do nice things for her friends.’

      ‘And not so nice things to her enemies,’ Stragen added. ‘I remember some of the plans she had for Primate Annias.’

      ‘That’s as it should be, Milord Stragen,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘The only real reason for accepting the inconveniences of power is to reward our friends and punish our enemies.’

      ‘I couldn’t agree more, your Excellency.’

      Engessa conferred with King Androl, and Ehlana with Queen Betuana. No one was particularly surprised when Sephrenia served as translator for the queens. The small Styric woman, it appeared, spoke most of the languages in the known world. Norkan explained to Sparhawk and the others that the child’s parents were much involved in the Rite of Passage. Engessa would serve as Mirtai’s father, and Mirtai had rather shyly asked Ehlana to be her mother. The request had occasioned an emotional display of affection between the two of them. ‘It’s a rather touching ceremony, actually,’ Norkan told them. ‘The parents are obliged to assert that their child is fit and ready to assume the responsibilities of adulthood. They then offer to fight anyone who disagrees. Not to worry Sparhawk,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘It’s a formality. The challenge is almost never taken up.’

      ‘Almost never?’

      ‘I’m teasing, of course. No one’s going to fight your wife. That speech of hers totally disarmed them. They adore her. I hope she’s quick of study, however. She’ll have to speak in Tamul.’

      ‘Learning a foreign language takes a long time,’ Kalten said dubiously. ‘I studied Styric for ten years and never did get the hang of it.’

      ‘You have no aptitude for languages, Kalten,’ Vanion told him. ‘Even Elenic confuses you sometimes.’

      ‘You don’t have to be insulting, Lord Vanion.’

      ‘I imagine Sephrenia will cheat a little,’ Sparhawk added. ‘She and Aphrael taught me to speak Troll in about five seconds in Ghwerig’s cave.’ He looked at Norkan. ‘When will the ceremony take place?’ he asked.

      ‘At midnight. The child passes into adulthood as one day passes into the next.’

      ‘There’s an exquisite kind of logic there,’ Stragen noted.

      ‘The hand of God,’ Bevier murmured piously.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Even the heathen responds to that gentle inner voice, Milord Stragen.’

      ‘I’m afraid I’m still missing the point, Sir Bevier.’

      ‘Logic is what sets our God apart,’ Bevier explained patiently. ‘It’s His special gift to the Elene people, and He reaches out with it to all others, freely offering its blessing to the unenlightened.’

      ‘Is that really a part of Elene doctrine, your Grace?’ Stragen asked the Patriarch of Ucera.

      ‘Tentatively,’ Emban replied. ‘The view is more widely-held in Arcium than elsewhere. The Arcian clergy has been trying to have it included in the articles of the faith for the last thousand years or so, but the Deirans have been resisting. The Hierocracy takes up the question when we have nothing else to do.’

      ‘Do you think it will ever be resolved, your Grace?’ Norkan asked him.

      ‘Good God no, your Excellency. If we ever settled the issue, we wouldn’t have anything to argue about.’

      Oscagne approached from the far side of the square. He took Sparhawk and Vanion aside, his expression concerned. ‘How well do you gentlemen know Zalasta?’ he asked them.

      ‘I only met him once before we reached Sarsos,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Lord Vanion here knows him much better than I.’

      ‘I’m starting to have some doubts about this legendary wisdom of his,’ Oscagne said to them. ‘The Styric enclave in eastern Astel abuts Atan, so he should know more about these people than he seems to. I just caught him suggesting a demonstration of prowess to the Peloi and some of the younger Church Knights.’

      ‘It’s not unusual, your Excellency,’ Vanion shrugged. ‘Young men like to show off.’

      ‘That’s exactly my point, Lord Vanion.’ Oscagne’s expression was worried. ‘That’s not done here in Atan. Demonstrations of that kind lead to bloodshed. The Atans look upon that sort of thing as a challenge. I got there just in time to avert a disaster. What was the man thinking of?’

      ‘Styrics sometimes grow a bit vague,’ Vanion explained. ‘They can be profoundly absent-minded sometimes. I’ll have Sephrenia speak with him and remind him to pay attention.’

      ‘Oh, there’s something else, gentlemen,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘Don’t let Sir Berit wander around alone in the city. There are whole platoons of unmarried Atan girls lusting after him.’

      ‘Berit?’ Vanion looked startled.

      ‘It’s happened before, Vanion,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘There’s something about our young friend that drives young women wild. It has to do with his eyelashes, I think. Ehlana and Melidere tried to explain it to me in Darsas. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but I took their word for it.’

      ‘What an astonishing thing,’ Vanion said.

      There were torches everywhere, and the faint, fragrant night breeze tossed their sooty СКАЧАТЬ