"Coldheart Canyon (preview edition)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive - Coldheart Canyon)

pictures on the walls.
Page 14
Barker, Clive - Coldheart Canyon
мAre there records documenting how this was created? It is a masterpiece, in
its way."
"One of a kind," Sandru said.
"Absolutely one of a kind."
"To answer your question, no, there are no records. It's assumed that it was
funded by Duke Goga, who had lately returned from the Crusades with a large amount
of booty, claimed from the infidel in the name of Christ."
"But to build a room like this with money you'd made on the Crusades!"
Zeffer said incredulously.
"I agree. It seems like an unlikely thing to do in the name of God. Of
course none of this is proved. There are some people who will tell you that Goga
went missing on one of his hunts, and it wasn't him who built this place at all."
"Who then?"
"Lilith, the Devil's wife," the Father said, dropping his voice to a
whisper. "Which would make this the Devil's Country, no?"
"Has anybody tried to analyze the work?"
"Oh yes. The Englishman I spoke of, George Soames, claimed he had discovered
evidence of twenty-two different styles amongst the designs. But that was just the
painters. Then there were the men who actually made the tiles. Fired them. Sorted
out the good from the bad. Prepared the paint. Cleaned the brushes. And there must
have been some system to align everything."
"The rows of tiles?"
"I was thinking more of the alignment of interior with the exterior."
"Perhaps they built the room first."
"No. The Fortress is two-and-a-half centuries older than this room."
"My God, so to get the alignment so perfectу?"
"Is quite miraculous. Soames found fifty-nine geographical markersу certain
stones, trees, the spire of the old abbey in Darscusуwhich are visible from the
tower and are also painted on the wall. He calculated that all fifty-nine were
correctly aligned, within half a degree of accuracy."
"Somebody was obsessive."
"Or else, divinely inspired."
"You believe that?"
"Why not?"
Zeffer glanced back at the arena on the wall behind him, with all its
libidinous excesses. "Does that look like the kind of work that somebody would do in
the name of God?"
мAs I said," Sandru replied, "I no longer know where God is and where He
isn't."
There was a long silence, during which Zeffer continued to survey the walls.
Finally he said: "How much do you want for it?"
"How much do I want for what?"
"For the room?"
Sandru barked out a laugh.
"I mean it," Zeffer said. "How much do you want for it?"
"It's a room, Mr. Zeffer," Sandru said. "You can't buy a room."
"Then it's not for sale?"