Sword of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Crepelgate Cripplegate, London Dumnoc Dunwich, Suffolk East Seax Essex Elentone Maidenhead, Berkshire Eoferwic Saxon name for York, Yorkshire Fæfresham Faversham, Kent Farnea Islands Farne Islands, Northumberland Fearnhamme Farnham, Surrey Ferentone Farndon, Cheshire Fleot, River River Fleet, London Fughelness Foulness, Essex Gleawecestre Gloucester, Gloucestershire Grimesbi Grimsby, Lincolnshire Hamptonscir Hampshire Heahburh Fictional name for Whitley Castle, Cumbria Heorotforda Hertford, Hertfordshire Humbre, River River Humber Jorvik Danish name for York, Yorkshire Ligan, River River Lea Lindcolne Lincoln, Lincolnshire Lindisfarena Lindisfarne, Northumberland Ludd’s Gate Ludgate, London Lupiae Lecce, Italy Lundene London Mameceaster Manchester Ora Oare, Kent Sceapig Isle of Sheppey, Kent St Cuthbert’s Cave Cuddy’s Cave, Holburn, Northumberland Strath Clota Kingdom in south-west Scotland Suðgeweork Southwark, London Swalwan Creek The Swale, Thames Estuary Temes, River River Thames Toteham Tottenham, Greater London Tuede, River River Tweed Weala, brook The Walbrook, London Werlameceaster St Albans, Hertfordshire Westmynster Westminster, London Wicumun High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire Wiltunscir Wiltshire Wintanceaster Winchester, Hampshire

       Map

       PART ONE

       A Fool’s Errand

       ONE

      Gydene was missing.

      She was not the first of my ships to vanish. The savage sea is vast and ships are small and Gydene, which simply meant ‘goddess’, was smaller than most. She had been built at Grimesbi on the Humbre and had been named Haligwæter. She had fished for a year before I bought her and, because I wanted no ship named Holy Water in my fleet, I paid a virgin one shilling to piss in her bilge, renamed her Gydene, and gave her to the fisherfolk of Bebbanburg. They cast their nets far offshore and, when Gydene did not return on a day when the wind was brisk, the sky grey, and the waves were crashing white and high on the rocks of the Farnea Islands, we assumed she had been overwhelmed and had given Bebbanburg’s small village six widows and almost three times as many orphans. Maybe I should have left her name alone, all seamen know that you risk fate by changing a ship’s name, though they know equally well that a virgin’s piss averts that fate. Yet the gods can be as cruel as the sea.

      Then Egil Skallagrimmrson came from his land that I had granted to him, land that formed the border of my territory and Constantin of Scotland’s realm, and Egil came by sea as he always did and there was a corpse in the belly of Banamaðr, his serpent-ship. ‘Washed ashore in the Tuede,’ he told me, ‘he’s yours, isn’t he?’

      ‘The Tuede?’ I asked.

      ‘Southern shore. Found him on a mudbank. The gulls found him first.’

      ‘I can see.’

      ‘He was one of yours, wasn’t he?’

      ‘He was,’ I said. The dead man’s name was Haggar Bentson, a fisherman, helmsman of the Gydene, a big man, too fond of ale, scarred from too many brawls, a bully, a wife-beater, and a good sailor.

      ‘Wasn’t drowned, was he?’ Egil remarked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘And the gulls didn’t kill him,’ Egil sounded amused.

      ‘No,’ I said, ‘the gulls didn’t kill him.’ Instead Haggar had been hacked to death. His corpse was naked and fish-white, except for the hands and what was left of his face. Great wounds had been slashed across his belly, chest and thighs, the savage cuts washed clean by the sea.

      Egil touched a boot against a gaping wound that had riven Haggar’s chest from the shoulder to the breastbone. ‘I’d say that was the axe blow that killed him,’ he said, ‘but someone cut off his balls first.’

      ‘I noticed that.’

      Egil СКАЧАТЬ