Domes of Fire. David Eddings

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СКАЧАТЬ was quite a bit later, almost dawn. Ehlana’s regular breathing told Sparhawk that she was asleep. He slipped from the bed and went to the window. His years of military training made it automatic for him to take a look at the weather just before daybreak.

      The rain had abated, but the wind had picked up. It was early spring now, and there was little hope for decent weather for weeks. He was glad that he had reached home when he had, since the approaching day looked unpromising. He stared out at the torches flaring and tossing in the windy courtyard.

      As they always did when the weather was bad, Sparhawk’s thoughts drifted back to the years he had spent in the sun-blasted city of Jiroch on the arid north coast of Rendor where the women, all veiled and robed in black, went to the well in the steely first light of day and where the woman named Lillas had consumed his nights with what she chose to call love. He did not, however, remember that night in Cippria when Martel’s assassins had quite nearly spilled out his life. He had settled that score with Martel in the Temple of Azash in Zemoch, so there was no real purpose in remembering the stockyard of Cippria nor the sound of the monastery bells which had called to him out of the darkness.

      That momentary sense of being watched, the sense that had come over him in the narrow street while he had been on his way to the palace still nagged at him. Something he did not understand was going on, and he fervently wished that he could talk with Sephrenia about it.

CHAPTER 2

      ‘Your Majesty,’ the Earl of Lenda protested, ‘you can’t address this kind of language to the Archprelate.’ Lenda was staring with chagrin at the piece of paper the queen had just handed him. ‘You’ve done everything but accuse him of being a thief and a scoundrel.’

      ‘Oh, did I leave those out?’ she asked. ‘How careless of me.’ They were meeting in the blue-carpeted council chamber as they usually did at this time of the morning.

      ‘Can’t you do something with her, Sparhawk?’ Lenda pleaded.

      ‘Oh, Lenda,’ Ehlana laughed, smiling at the frail old man, ‘that’s only a draft. I was a little irritated when I scribbled it down.’

      ‘A little?’

      ‘I know we can’t send the letter in its present form, my Lord. I just wanted you to know how I really felt about the matter before we rephrase it and couch it in diplomatic language. My whole point is that Dolmant’s beginning to overstep his bounds. He’s the Archprelate, not the emperor. The Church has too much authority over temporal affairs already, and, if someone doesn’t bring Dolmant up short, every monarch in Eosia will become little more than his vassal. I’m sorry gentlemen. I’m a true daughter of the Church, but I won’t kneel to Dolmant and receive my crown back from him in some contrived little ceremony that has no purpose other than my humiliation.’

      Sparhawk was a bit surprised at his wife’s political maturity. The power structure on the Eosian Continent had always depended on a rather delicate balance between the authority of the Church and the power of the various kings. When that balance was disturbed, things went awry. ‘Her Majesty’s point may be well-taken, Lenda,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The Eosian monarchies haven’t been very strong for the last generation or so. Aldreas was –’ He groped for a word.

      ‘Inept,’ his wife coolly characterised her own father.

      ‘I might not have gone quite that far,’ he murmured. ‘Wargun’s erratic, Soros is a religious hysteric, Obler’s old, and Friedahl reigns only at the sufferance of his barons. Dregos lets his relatives make all his decisions, King Brisant of Cammoria is a voluptuary and I don’t even know the name of the current King of Rendor.’

      ‘Ogyrin,’ Kalten supplied, ‘not that it really matters.’

      ‘Anyway,’ Sparhawk continued, sinking lower in his chair and rubbing the side of his face thoughtfully, ‘during this same period of time, we’ve had a number of very able churchmen in the Hierocracy. The incapacity of Cluvonus sort of encouraged the patriarchs to strike out on their own. If you had a vacant throne someplace, you could do a lot worse than put Emban on it – or Ortzel – or Bergsten, and even Annias had a very high degree of political skill. When kings grow weak, the Church grows strong – too strong sometimes.’

      ‘Spit it out, Sparhawk,’ Platime growled. ‘Are you trying to say we should declare war on the Church?’

      ‘Not today, Platime. We might want to keep the idea in reserve, though. Right now I think it’s time to start sending some signals to Chyrellos, and our queen may be just the one to send them. After the way she stampeded the Hierocracy during Dolmant’s election, I think they’ll listen very carefully to just about anything she says. I don’t know that I’d soften her letter all that much, Lenda. Let’s see if we can get their attention.’

      Lenda’s eyes were very bright. ‘This is the way the game’s supposed to be played, my friends,’ he said enthusiastically.

      ‘You do realise that it’s altogether possible that Dolmant didn’t realise that he was stepping over the line,’ Kalten noted. ‘Maybe he sent Sparhawk to Lamorkand as the interim preceptor of the Pandion Order and completely overlooked the fact that he’s also the prince consort. Sarathi’s got a lot on his mind just now.’

      ‘If he’s that absent-minded, he’s got no business occupying the Archprelate’s throne,’ Ehlana asserted. Her eyes narrowed, always a dangerous sign. ‘Let’s make it very clear to him that he’s hurt my feelings. He’ll go out of his way to smooth things over, and maybe I can take advantage of that to retrieve that Duchy just north of Vardenaise. Lenda, is there any way we can keep people from bequeathing their estates to the Church?’

      ‘It’s a long-standing custom, your Majesty.’

      ‘I know, but the land originally comes from the crown. Shouldn’t we have some say in who inherits it? You’d think that if a nobleman dies without an heir, the estate would revert back to me, but every time there’s a childless noble in Elenia, the churchmen flock around him like vultures trying to talk him into giving them the land.’

      ‘Jerk some titles,’ Platime suggested. ‘Make it a law that if a man doesn’t have an heir, he doesn’t keep his estate.’

      ‘The aristocracy would go up in flames,’ Lenda gasped.

      ‘That’s what the army’s for,’ Platime shrugged, ‘to put out fires. I’ll tell you what, Ehlana, you pass the law, and I’ll arrange a few very public and very messy accidents for the ones who scream the loudest. Aristocrats aren’t very bright, but they’ll get the point – eventually.’

      ‘Do you think I could get away with that?’ Ehlana asked the Earl of Lenda.

      ‘Surely your Majesty’s not seriously considering it?’

      ‘I have to do something Lenda. The Church is eating up my kingdom acre by acre, and once she takes possession of an estate, the land’s removed from the tax rolls forever.’ She paused. ‘This could just be a way to do what Sparhawk suggested – get the Church’s attention. Why don’t we draw up a draft of some outrageously repressive law and just “accidentally” let a copy fall into the hands of some middle-level clergyman. It’s probably safe to say that it’ll be in Dolmant’s hands before the ink’s dry.’

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ