Darkspell. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ her clan at the harvest rite? Then the memory came back, sharp as a sword thrust.

      “Avoic,” she whispered. “Oh, Avoid”

      Yet no tears came, and she realized that she was hungry. Sore and stretching, she got up and wandered through a doorway at the end of the dormitory into the refectory, a narrow room crammed with tables for desperate guests. A neophyte in a white dress kittled with green screamed aloud, then laughed.

      “My apologies, Gwen. I thought you were a lad for a moment. Sit down and I’ll fetch you porridge.”

      Gweniver unbuckled the sword belt and slung it on the table. She ran one finger down Avoic’s second-best scabbard, chaped in tarnished silver and inlaid with spirals and interlaced wolves. By all rights under the law, she was the head of the Wolf clan now, but she doubted if she could ever claim her position. To inherit in the female line, she would need to overcome more obstacles than Tieryn Bureau of the Boar.

      In a few minutes Ardda, high priestess of the temple, came to sit beside her. Although she grew old, with her hair turning gray and lines webbing her eyes, Ardda’s step and carriage were as lithe as a young lass’s.

      “Well, Gwen. You’ve been telling me for years that you want to be a priestess. Has the time come upon you now or not?”

      “I don’t know, my lady. You know that I’ve always had doubts about my calling, but do I have any choice in the matter now?”

      “Don’t forget that you’ve got the Wolf lands for a dowry. When the news spreads, I’ll wager that many a man among your father’s allies will want to come fetch you out.”

      “But oh, ye gods, I’ve never wanted to marry!”

      With a little sigh Ardda unconsciously reached up and touched her right cheek, covered with the blue tattoo of the crescent moon. Any man who touched in lust a woman with that mark would die. Not merely noble lords but any freeborn man would have slain the defiler; everyone knew that the Goddess’s wrath meant the crops would fail and no man ever sire a son again.

      “Knowing you, you want to keep the Wolfs lands,” Ardda said. “That means marrying.”

      “It’s not only the land. I want to keep my clan alive. May the Goddess blast me if I let the stinking Boars win!”

      “I wish you wouldn’t curse in the temple.”

      “I’m not cursing. I mean it. But there’s my sister. If I swore to the Goddess, then the right of inheritance would pass to Maccy. She always had lots of suitors, even when she only had a small dowry.”

      “But could she rule the clan?”

      “Of course not, but if I pick her the right husband—oh, listen to me! How am I going to get to the king to lay my petition? I’ll wager that the Boar’s riding this way right now to pen us up like hogs.”

      Her prediction came true not an hour later. Gweniver was restlessly pacing around the guest house when she heard the sound of men and horses riding their way. As she ran toward the gates, priestesses joined her, yelling at the gatekeeper to close them up. Gweniver was just helping slam the iron bar into the staples when the horsemen arrived in a clatter of hooves and a jingle of mail. Ardda already stood on the catwalk over the gates. Trembling with rage, Gweniver climbed up and joined her.

      On the flat ground below the temple hill, the Boar’s warband milled around as the men tried to draw their horses up into some kind of order. Burcan himself edged his horse out of the mob and rode right up to the gates. A man of solid years, he had a thick streak of gray in his raven-dark hair and heavy mustache. Gweniver had been raised to hate him, and now he had killed her clan. If she had been closer, she would have spat in his face.

      “What do you want?” Ardda called out. “To approach the Holy Moon ready for war is an insult to the Goddess.”

      “No insult meant, Your Holiness,” he called back in his dark, gravelly voice. “It’s only that I rode in haste. I see that Lady Gweniver is safe here with you.”

      “And safe she’ll remain, unless you want the Goddess to curse your lands into barrenness.”

      “What kind of a man do you think I am, to violate the holy sanctuary? I came to make the lady an offer of peace.” He turned in the saddle to address Gweniver. “Many a blood feud’s ended with a wedding, my lady. Take my second son for your man and rule the Wolf lands in the name of the Boar.”

      “I’d never let kin to you lay one filthy finger on me, you bastard! And what do you expect me to do, swear fealty to that false king you serve?”

      Burcan’s broad face flushed in rage.

      “I make you a vow. If my son doesn’t have you, then no man will, and that goes for your sister, too. I’ll cursed well claim your land by right of blood feud if I have to.”

      “You forget yourself, my lord!” Ardda snapped. “I forbid you to remain on temple land for another minute. Take your men away and make no more threats to one who worships the Goddess!”

      Burcan hesitated, then shrugged and turned his horse away. Yelling orders, he collected his men and withdrew to the public road some distance from the foot of the hill. Gweniver clenched her fists so hard that they ached as the warband spread out in the meadow on the far side of the road, technically off the demesne that supported the temple but in a perfect position to guard it.

      “They can’t stay there forever,” Ardda said. “They’ll have to go to Dun Deverry soon to fulfill their obligation to their king.”

      “True spoken, but I’ll wager they stay there as long as they can.”

      Leaning back against the rampart, Ardda sighed. Suddenly she looked very old, and very weary.

      The civil wars had come about in this wise. Twenty-four years past, the High King died without a male heir, and his daughter, a sickly young lass, died soon after. Each of his three sisters, however, had sons by their high-ranking husbands, Gwerbret Cerrmor, Gwerbret Cantrae, and the Marked Prince of the kingdom of Eldidd. By law the throne should have passed to the son of the eldest sister, married to Cantrae, but the gwerbret was widely suspected of having poisoned the king and princess both to get at the throne. Gwerbret Cerrmor worked that suspicion to claim the throne for his son, and then the prince of Eldidd laid a further claim on the basis of his son’s doubly royal blood. Since Gweniver’s father never would have declared for a foreigner from Eldidd, the Wolf clan’s choice was made when the long-hated Boars supported the Cantrae claim.

      Year after year the fighting raged around the true prize, the city of Dun Deverry, taken by one side one summer only to fall to another a few years later. After so many sieges Gweniver doubted if there were much left of the Holy City, but taking it meant everything for holding the kingship. All winter it had been in Cantrae hands, but now it was spring. Everywhere across the torn kingdom the claimants to the throne were mustering their vassals and reaffirming their alliances. Gweniver was certain that by now her clan’s allies would be in Cerrmor.

      “So listen, Maccy,” she said. “We may have to stay here all summer, but eventually someone will bring his war-band and get us out.”

      Macla nodded miserably. They were sitting in the temple gardens, on a little bench among the rows of carrots and cabbages. Macla, who was sixteen, was normally a pretty lass, but today her blond hair was pulled back СКАЧАТЬ