"Allen, James - Unicorn Trade, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen James)

"I ... have a ... proposition for you," he mumbled. Strange how he blushed, like a virginal boy, this man who had dared hurricanes and spears.
"Oh, I tike, propositions." Vardrai drew close to him and ruffled his whiskers.
He seized her and kissed her. She seldom wanted a kiss on the mouth, but found that this time it was different. "What a woman you are," he groaned.
"Thank you, kind sir," she laughed, and fluttered her lashes at him. "Shall we try if that be true?"
"A moment, I beg you." Haako stepped back and took her by the shoulders. His callouses scratched her slightly, arousingly, as he shivered. Otherwise he was gentle. His eyes sought hers. "Vardrai, I—I've come into a chunk of money. Left to myself, I'll drink and dice it away, and soon have nothing for you . . . and my ship will be calling two or three times yearly in Seilles hereafter, it will." The words tumbled from him. "Here's my proposition. What say I give you the sum, right this now, in pure gold— and you let me see you free of charge, always after, whenever I'm in port? Is that a fair offer, I ask you? Oh, Vardrai, Vardrai—"
Wariness congealed her. "What sum do you speak of?" she asked.
"I've the coin right here, and a paper from banker Pandric to give the worth," he blurted, while he fumbled in his pouch. "Four hundred aureates, 'tis."
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Her world swooped around her. She stumbled against him. He upheld her. "Four hundred aureates!" she whispered.
The moon sank west. Streets were deserted, save for the Lord Mayor's patrols, or peasants carting their produce to market, or less identifiable persons. The sounds of their passage rang hollow beneath the stars. Hither and yon, though, windows were coming to life with lamplight.
One belonged to the kitchen of Jans Orliand. Having slept poorly ever since he lost his wife, the chronicler was often up this early. He sat with a dish of porridge he had cooked for himself and read a book as he ate.
A knock on the door lifted his attention. Surprised, slightly apprehensive, he went to unlatch it. If that was a robber, he could shout and rouse his son Denn—but it was a woman who slipped through, and when she removed her hooded cloak, she was seen to be glorious.
"Vardrai of Syr!" Jans exclaimed. They had never met, but she was too famous for him not to recognize when they chanced to pass each other in the open. "Why, why, what brings you? Sit down, do, let me brew some herbal tea—"
"I have heard it cried that you've a house for sale, a large one with many rooms," she said.
He looked closer at her. Cosmetics did not altogether hide the darknesses below her eyes, or the pallor of cheeks and lips. She must have lain sleepless hour after hour, thinking about this, until she could wait no longer.
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"Well, well, yes, I do," he replied. "Not that I expected—"
The wish exploded from her: "Could you show it to me? Immediately? If it suits, I can buy it on the instant."
Lona Grancy had also slept ill. The moon had not yet gone behind western roofs, and the east showed just the faintest silver, when she trudged from cottage to shed, lighted its lamps, and commenced work. "May as well," she said. "Not that customers will crowd our place, eh?"—this to her cat, which returned a wise green gaze before addressing itself to the saucer of milk she set forth.
The maiden pummeled clay, threw it upon the turntable, sat down, and spun the wheel with more ferocity than needful. It shrilled and groaned. She shivered in the cold which crept out from between her arrayed wares. The hour before dawn is the loneliest of all.
A man came in off the street. "Master Orliand!" she hailed him. "What on earth?" The spinning died away.
"I thought... I hoped I might find you awake," the scholar said. Breath smoked ragged with each word. "I am pushing matters, true, but— well, every moment's delay is a moment additional before I can seek out a, a certain lady and—Could we talk, my dear?"
"Of course, old friend." Lona rose. "Let me put this stuff aside and clean my hands, then I'll fetch us a bite of food and—But what do you want?"
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"Your property," said Jans. "I can give you an excellent price."
Again by herself, for her visitor had staggered off to his bed, Lona stood in her home and looked down at the coin. It covered her hand; its weight felt like the weight of the world; strange glimmers and glistens rippled across the profile upon it. Silence pressed inward. Wicks guttered low.
So, she thought, now she had sold everything. Jans would not force her to leave unduly fast, but leave she must. Why had she done it—and in such haste, too?
Well, four hundred aureates was no mean sum of cash. No longer was she bound to the shop which had bound her father to itself. She could fare elsewhere, to opportunities in Croy, for example; or, of course, this was a dowry which could buy her a desirable match. Yes, a good, steady younger son of a nobleman or merchant, who would make cautious investments and—
"And hell take him!" she screamed, grabbed the coin to her, and fled.
Arvel tried for a long while to sleep. Finally he lost patience, dressed in the dark, and fumbled his way downstairs. Lamps still burned along the street, but their glow was pale underneath a sinking moon and lightening sky, pale as the last stars. Dew shimmered on cobbles. Shadows made mysterious the carvings
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upon timbers, the arcades and alleys around him.
He would go to the farmers' market, he decided, break his fast, and search for a horse. When that was done, the shops would be open wherein he could obtain the rest of his equipage. By noon he could be on the road to Croy and his destiny. The prospect was oddly desolate.
However, no doubt he would meet another girl somewhere, and—
A small, sturdy figure rounded a corner, . stopped for an instant, and sped toward him. "Oh, Arvel!" Echoes gave back Lena's cry, over and over. Light went liquid across the disc she carried. "See what I have for you! Our passage to the New Lands!"
"But—but how in creation did you get hold of that?" he called. Bewilderment rocked him. "And I thought you—you and I—"
"I've sold out!" she jubilated as she ran. "We can go!"
She caromed against him, and he wasted no further time upon thought.
When they came up for air, he mumbled, 'JI already have the price of our migration, dear darling. But that you should offer me this, out of your love, why, that's worth more than, than all the rest of the world, and heaven thrown in."
She crowed for joy and nestled close. Again he gathered her to him. In her left hand, behind his shoulder, she gripped the fairy gold. The sun came over a rooftop, and smote. Suddenly
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she held nothing. A few dead leaves blew away upon the dawn breeze, with a sound like dry laughter.
—Poul Anderson
BALLADE OF AN ARTIFICIAL SATELLITE
Thence they sailed far to the southward along the land, and came to a ness; the land lay upon the right; there were long and sandy strands. They rowed to land, and found there upon the ness the keel of a ship, and called the place Keelness, and the strands they called Wonder-strands for it took long to sail by them.