Darkspell. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_67fbe001-94a3-5783-9cb5-39efb62e6beb">DEVERRY 733

      All men have seen the two smiling faces of the Goddess, She who brings love to men’s hearts. Some have seen Her stern face, the Mother who at times must chastise her erring children. But how many have ever seen the fourth face of the Goddess, which is hidden even to most women who walk the earth?

       The Discourses ofthe Priestess, Camylla

      The rider was dying. He slid off his horse to the cobbles, staggered once, and fell to his knees. Gweniver flung herself down and grabbed him by the shoulders before he fell on his face. Warm blood oozed through his shirt onto her hands.

      “Lost, my lady,” he gasped. “Your brother’s dead.”

      Blood welled into his mouth and broke in a bubble of death. When she laid him down, his foundered horse tossed its head once, then merely trembled, dripping gray sweat. She got to her feet just as a stable lad came running.

      “Do what you can for that horse,” she said. “Then tell all the servants to pack up and flee. You’ve got to get out of here or you won’t live the night.”

      Wiping her hands on her dress, Gweniver ran across the ward to the tall broch of the Wolf clan, which would burn that night beyond her power to save it. Inside the great hall, huddled by the honor hearth, were her mother, Dolyan, her younger sister, Macla, and Mab, their aged serving woman.

      “The Boar’s men have caught our warband on the road,” Gweniver said. “Avoic’s dead, and there’s an end to the feud.”

      Dolyan threw back her head and keened out a wail for her husband and three sons. Macla burst into moist sobs and clung to Mab.

      “Oh, hold your tongues!” Gweniver snapped. “The Boar’s warband is doubtless riding here right now to claim us. Do you want to end up as trophies?”

      “Gwen!” Macla wailed. “How can you be so cold-hearted?”

      “Better coldhearted than raped. Now, hurry, all of you. Get the things you can carry on one horse. We’re riding to the Temple of the Moon. If we live to reach it, the priestesses will give us refuge. Do you hear me, Mam, or do you want to see me and Maccy handed over to the warband?”

      The deliberate brutality forced Dolyan silent.

      “Good,” Gweniver said. “Now, hurry, all of you!”

      She followed the others as they puffed up the spiral staircase, but she went to her brother’s chamber, not her own. From the carved chest beside his bed she took a pair of his old brigga and one of his shirts. Changing into his clothes brought her a scatter of tears—she’d been fond of Avoic, who was only fourteen—but there was no time for mourning. She belted on his second-best sword and an old dagger. Although she was far from being a trained warrior, her brothers had taught her how to handle a sword. Finally she unclasped her long blond hair and cut it off short with the dagger. At night she would look enough like a man to give any lone marauder pause about attacking her party on the road.

      Since they had over thirty miles to go to reach safety, Gweniver bullied the other women into riding fast, trotting, walking, then occasionally galloping in short bursts. Every now and then she would turn in her saddle and scan the road for the dust cloud that would mean death chasing them. Shortly after sunset the full moon rose to shed her holy light to guide them. By then her mother was swaying in the saddle with exhaustion. Gweniver saw a copse of alders off to one side of the road and led the others there for a brief rest. Dolyan and Mab had to be helped down from their saddles.

      Gweniver walked back to the road to stand guard. Far away on the horizon, in the direction from which they’d come, a golden glow flared like the rising of a tiny moon. It was most likely the dun burning. She drew her sword and clutched the hilt while she stared unthinking at the glare. Suddenly she heard hoofbeats and saw a rider galloping down the road. Behind her in the copse the horses nickered a greeting, unknowing traitors.

      “Mount!” she screamed. “Get ready to ride!”

      The rider pulled up, then dismounted and drew his sword. As he strode toward her, she saw his bronze cloak pin glittering in the moonlight: a Boarsman.

      “And who are you, lad?” he said.

      Gweniver dropped into a fighting crouch.

      “A page of the Wolf, from your silence. And what are you guarding so faithfully? I hate to kill a slip of a lad like you, but orders-are orders, so come now, turn the ladies over to me.”

      In utter desperation Gweniver lunged and struck. Taken off guard, the Boarsman slipped, his sword swinging up wildly. She cut again and sliced him hard on one side of his neck, then struck back on the other, just as her older brother Benoic had taught her. With a moan of disbelief the Boarsman buckled to his knees and died at her feet. Gweniver nearly vomited. In the moonlight the sword blade was dark wet with blood, not shiny clean as in the practice sessions. Her mother’s shriek of terror brought her back to her senses. She ran for the Boarsman’s horse, grabbed the reins just as it was about to bolt, then led it back to the copse.

      “That it would ever come to this!” Mab sobbed. “That a lass I tended would be forced to turn warrior on the roads! Oh, holy gods all, when will you have mercy on the kingdom?”

      “When it suits them and not a minute before,” Gweniver said. “Now, get on those horses! We’ve got to get out of here.”

      Deep in the middle of the night they reached the Temple of the Moon, which sat at the top of a hill with a stone wall around its compound. Along with his friends and vassals, Gweniver’s father had given the coin to build the wall, a farsighted generosity on his part, since it would now save his wife and daughters. If any battle-drunk warrior were insane enough to break geis and risk the Goddess’s wrath by demanding entry, the wall would keep him out until he’d come to his senses. At the gates Gweniver screamed and yelled and kept it up until at last she heard a frightened voice call back that its owner was on the way. A priestess draped in a shawl yanked the gates open a bare crack, then shoved them wider when she saw Dolyan.

      “Oh, my lady, has the worst come upon your clan?”

      “It has. Will you shelter us?”

      “Gladly, but I don’t know what to do about this lad with you.”

      “It’s only Gwen in her brother’s clothes,” Gweniver broke in. “I thought we’d best pretend to have a man with us.”

      “Well and good, then. Now ride in quickly, all of you.”

      Dark and shadowed in the moonlight, the vast temple compound was crowded with buildings, some of stone, others hastily thrown together out of wood. Priestesses with cloaks over their nightdresses clustered round the refugees. Some took the horses to the stables; others led Gweniver and her party to the long wood guest house. Once an elegant place for visiting noblewomen, it spread out crowded with cots and chests, and women of all ranks sheltered there. The blood feud that had just reduced the Wolf clan to three women was only a single thread in a hideous tapestry of civil war.

      By the light of a candle lantern the priestesses found the newest arrivals empty cots in a corner. In the midst of the whispers and confusion, Gweniver lay down on the nearest one and fell asleep, boots, sword belt, and all.

      She woke to find a silent, empty dormitory СКАЧАТЬ