Crown of Destiny. Бертрис Смолл

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Lara said quietly. “You have no magic in you, Taj, but you are still the son of a faerie woman. Be glad you are an ordinary mortal for if you were not you would face what I now face. It was never so in your father’s time. Or perhaps it was, and your father protected me for he loved me. I am your mother, my lord Dominus, and that alone should command respect. But if your wife and aunts are allowed to treat me so shabbily, then your children will, too. Once you stood by my side against those who would mistreat me. You no longer do. It saddens me, but I will always love you even if I no longer like you,” Lara told her son, and by the shocked look upon his face she knew she had made her point.

      But she could not, would not stand between Taj and Vineeta. She would not demand that he make a choice between his mother and his wife. That was a mortal way; it was not the faerie way. And so her grandchildren had become virtual strangers to Lara. But when Taj’s younger son was to be sent to Hetar as Terah’s ambassador, he came to Lara for more knowledge than anyone else could give him.

      “Tell me about Hetar,” he said.

      “Why do you need to know?” Lara asked him.

      “I am to represent Terah,” Amren said proudly. “You are Hetarian. You know what I need to know.”

      “I am faerie,” Lara told him. “I was born in the forests of Hetar, daughter of Ilona, who is Queen of the Forest Faeries, and a Hetarian named John Swiftsword. Swiftsword was your great-grandfather. His memory is much respected in Hetar, and especially among the Crusader Knights.”

      “What are they?” Amren inquired.

      Lara explained.

      “So in Hetar there is a distinct social strata, as there is here in Terah,” he said.

      “Even more so,” Lara told the young man. “In Terah there is the Dominus, his family, and an underclass of merchants, farmers, artisans and the like. In Hetar there is the Lord High Ruler, the High Council made up of representatives from the provinces, as well as a Merchants Guild to which all merchants and shopkeepers belong. There is a Mercenary Guild, the order of the Crusader Knights, the Pleasure Mistresses Guild, the Guild of Pleasure Women. There are farmers and traders, healers and those who perform miscellaneous services.”

      “It sounds very complicated,” Amren noted. “But you must teach me so I know it all, and do not embarrass my father.”

      “Must? How dare you speak to me so, Amren, grandson of Magnus Hauk. In Hetar how one appears is paramount, and good manners are all-important. If you are loud and rude, Hetar will believe that all who live in Terah are the same way. Your first impression will be the most important impression you make. You cannot allow Hetar to continue their foolish fantasy of being the only civilized kingdom in our world. Still I must consider if I will educate you in the ways of Hetar. Is it even possible to do so, considering how you have been raised?”

      Amren was a very handsome young man. In many ways he reminded her of Magnus Hauk with his dark blond hair and his blue eyes. But his lips were thin, and his jaw weak. Yet he had a certain charm, Lara thought, and perhaps he could be taught to represent Terah with dignity and elegance. He smiled at Lara now. “Please teach me what I must know, Grandmother,” he said.

      Lara laughed aloud. “Never since any of you were born have I heard the word Grandmother directed toward me,” she said. “Come back tomorrow in the second hour after midday. I will have decided by then if I will help you.”

      “Could you really turn me into a toad?” he asked her half-seriously.

      Lara nodded slowly. “If I choose to,” she told him.

      “The old aunts say you are evil,” Amren said.

      “Narda and Anselma are a pair of dried-up old biddies. And they were the same in their youth. They know far more of evil than I do. Your aunt Sirvat was the only one among Magnus Hauk’s family who befriended me, and she is now gone.”

      “My mother loves them,” Amren said.

      “I am glad for them that someone does,” Lara remarked tartly. “Now, go away, boy. When you return tomorrow we shall talk again.”

      “If I return,” he replied.

      Lara laughed again and waved him from her. Of course the next afternoon Amren came, and for the next two months he spent time with his grandmother each afternoon learning all about Hetar. When she thought he was near to being ready, she called in the royal tailor and personally oversaw the creation of his wardrobe. The royal tailor, being a clever man, smiled and nodded in agreement with the Domina Vineeta and the Ladies Narda and Anselma when they told him what to do in regard to Amren’s clothing. Then, following Lara’s careful instructions, the tailor created a magnificent wardrobe of silks, velvets and satins, trimmed in gold and bejeweled with semiprecious stones and crystals. Shoes and boots of the finest leather, some of the shoes burnished with gold or silver. There were capes and cloaks trimmed with fur, some lined in cloth of gold or silver. His sword and the several daggers among his ambassadorial possessions had handles and hilts studded with precious jewels.

      When Dominus Taj saw all his mother had done for his younger son, he felt both pleased and sad. Briefly he recalled the childhood before his father had been killed, when she had loved him, and indulged him shamelessly. He remembered warm Autumn days when she would put him before her on her horse, Dasras, and gallop across the plains of Terah into the blue skies above, so he might see their world as others could not. When his father had died she had been his strength, gently but firmly guiding him, putting his interests, and those of Terah, first. Taj now knew by virtue of his years that only his magical faerie-woman mother could have been that bighearted. He realized now that she had saved Terah far more than once, and he was ashamed of his behavior. Looking at her, he said, “I have not the words.”

      “You do, and I hear them with my heart,” Lara replied softly. Then she turned to look at Amren. “He is an intelligent young man, and will serve Terah well, my son.”

      Domina Vineeta sat nervously nearby with the Ladies Narda and Anselma, watching her husband and his mother.

      “Which vessel is to conduct our Amren to Hetar?” Narda asked Vineeta.

      “No vessel,” was the reply. “He will be accompanied by a Shadow Prince.”

      Narda and Anselma both hissed their strong disapproval.

      “It is practical, and swift,” Vineeta dared to say. “And he has been given two personal faerie post creatures to carry his messages back and forth.”

      “And you allowed the faerie woman to corrupt your son, Vineeta?” Anselma said.

      “I am astounded that after all these years of protecting your children from her you would do such a thing. Amren’s wardrobe indicates that she has already begun to corrupt him. It is obvious she ensorcelled the tailor into doing her bidding, and not following our most careful instructions. Your younger son looks Hetarian now, not Terahn.”

      Lara had heard them. It had been years since she had spoken to either of her sisters-in-law, and she was surprised to find they still irritated her. “Amren is most handsome in his new garments. The richness of them gives him more value with the Hetarians with whom he must deal than if he had dressed himself in plain clothing. With Hetar it is always the first impression that is the lasting one. After all these years have you no concept of what Hetar is like?”

      They had had no answer for her. Recalling it СКАЧАТЬ