Guy Gavriel Kay - A Song for Arbonne

She smiled, almost ruefully. ‘Something in my own family, I suspect. My father was a man prone to take chances with trust. I seem to have inherited that from him. We might need each other, in a time not far from tonight.’

Struggling to absorb all of this, Blaise asked the only question he could think to ask. ‘Who was he? Your father?’

She shook her head, amused again. ‘Northerner, you seek to lead men in Arbonne. You will have to grow less bitter and more curious, I think, though it might be a long road for you. You should have known who was High Priestess on Rian’s Island before you came. I am Beatritz de Barbentain, my father was Guibor, count of Arbonne, my mother is Signe, who rules us now. I am the last of their children yet alive.’

Blaise was actually beginning to feel as if he might fall down, so buffeted did he feel by all of this. The skiff, he thought. The mainland. He urgently needed to be away from here.

‘Go,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts again. She raised her hand very slightly and the torch instantly went out. In the suddenly enveloping darkness, Blaise heard her say in her earlier voice—the sound of a priestess, speaking with power: ‘One last thing, Blaise of Gorhaut. A lesson for you to learn if you can: anger and hatred have limits that are reached too soon. Rian exacts a price for everything, but love is hers as well, in one of her oldest incarnations.’

Blaise turned then, stumbling over a root in the close night shadows. He left the wood, feeling moonlight as a blessing. He crossed the plateau and remembered, somehow, to untie Maffour’s rope and loop it about himself. Finding handholds in the rock face, he descended the cliff to the sea. The skiff was still there, waiting some distance away from shore. They saw him by the light of the high, pale moon. He was going to swim out, almost prepared to welcome the cold shock of the water again, but then he saw them rowing back for him and he waited. They came in to the edge of the rocks and Blaise stepped into the boat helped by Maffour and Giresse. He saw that Evrard of Lussan was still unconscious, slumped at the back of the skiff. Vanne was sitting up, though, at the front. He looked a little dazed. Blaise was not surprised.

‘They have kept Luth,’ he said briefly as they looked at him. ‘One man for one man. But they will do him no harm. I will tell you more on land, but in Corannos’s name, let’s go. I need a drink very badly, and we’ve a long way to row.’

He stepped over to his own bench and unwrapped the rope from his body. Maffour came and sat beside him again. They took their oars, and with no other words spoken, backed quietly out of the inlet Hirnan had found and turned the skiff towards land, towards Arbonne, rowing steadily in the calm, still night.

To the east, not long afterwards, well before they reached the shore, the waning crescent of the blue moon rose out of the sea to balance the silver one setting westward now, changing the light in the sky and on the water and on the rocks and trees of the island they were leaving behind.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.