Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell
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Название: Shadow on the Crown
Автор: Patricia Bracewell
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007481750
isbn:
His father, much revived, it appeared, by the wine, threw him a dark, almost furtive glance.
‘It was but weariness, nothing more,’ he murmured. ‘It has passed now. There are far weightier matters to occupy both my mind and yours. You will forget it.’ He left his chair and began to pace, restless and distracted. ‘There have been signs,’ he said heavily, ‘of trouble to come. I have seen portents—’ He flung up an arm as if to sweep away his own words. ‘Nay, I need no portents to know that Pallig is dangerous. As you say, he is no farmer. Neither are the men who answer to him. They will become restless, and then they will strike.’
The next moment the chamber door opened, and his father’s steward, Hubert, entered carrying a packet of documents. The king raised a hand to forestall whatever Hubert might say and looked gravely at Athelstan.
‘Did you see any indications that Pallig was preparing for battle?’
‘No, my lord,’ he said, mystified both by what he had just witnessed as well as by his father’s apparent determination to ignore it.
The king grimaced, as if that was not the answer he had anticipated. ‘Then there is nothing more to do, for now.’ He brushed past Athelstan as he made for his chair and beckoned to the steward. ‘Leave me. I have business with Hubert.’
Athelstan stood there for a moment, troubled, unwilling to leave before he had gained a better understanding of what he had just seen. But both men ignored him, and he knew better than to disobey his father’s command. He strode slowly from the chamber and, glancing back, he saw his father’s eyes now fixed hard upon him, and in those eyes was a warning that it would be perilous for him to ignore.
As he made his way through the great hall, something that Bishop Ælfheah had said to him in the spring came back to him: The king is troubled in his mind. Had the bishop been witness to a similar occurrence, then? Ælfheah had not explained himself, and Athelstan dared not question him about it now. That threatening glance from his father had commanded his silence. He stepped from the royal apartments into the sunshine of late summer, his mind still wrestling with the king’s strange behaviour and his talk of signs and portents.
Yet he, too, had been given a sign by the seeress near Saltford – albeit one he was unwilling to believe. And last winter there had been rumours from the north that men had seen columns of light shimmering in the night sky – fierce angels with swords, it was said, come to punish men for their sins.
Truth to tell, his father was not the only one disturbed by such portents, yet what steps could anyone take to vanquish foreboding or to prevent some cataclysm that was lurking in the future? And then, recalling his interview with the king, he knew with certainty that his father must be planning steps of some kind. Why else had he been sent to speak with Pallig? Yet if his father did have some presentiment of disaster might not his very efforts to avert it bring about the misfortune that he so dreaded?
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