"part2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keith Brooke - Lord of Stone)

they could just make out the broken top of the Arena. In the
dim light Bligh could see what looked like a bank of low
cloud but he guessed it must be smoke from fires and the
explosions which occasionally grumbled with an insistence
that seemed to grab his innards and squeeze.

"Bligh," said Madeleine, softly. He turned to her and she
continued, "You're very special."

Awkward, he looked down into her dark eyes, and said nothing.
He traced the line of her nose with a finger, then her cheek,
her jaw, her neck. They moved together, in the window recess,
and held each other for a long time before they kissed.

The bed was old and the mattress sagged towards the middle.
Whenever Bligh opened his eyes he saw Madeleine, the
bedspread, the walls, all lit up in the gathering darkness by
a faint fiery flickering, cast into their room from the
battle beyond.

The next morning they were hungry. By the time food had
occurred to them the previous evening it had been too late to
do anything about it. Bligh could have waited longer for his
breakfast, but Madeleine was up and dressing before he was
awake enough to persuade her to linger. He rolled over to lie
in the warm hollow she had left and watched as she used the
chamber pot and then washed at the room's cracked porcelain
basin.

Soon, the sunlight flooding in through the window proved too
much for him and he clambered out of bed and into his
clothes.

"The quiet sounds wrong," said Madeleine, and Bligh realised
that there was an absence of gunfire and explosions.

"Perhaps we have won," he said. He realised that he had said
we and turned awkwardly away to find his shoes.

Downstairs in the hotel lobby some guests were milling around
as two UPP soldiers went through the reception ledger with
the manager. Bligh had thought that he and Madeleine were the
only guests, but clearly he was wrong. He said a "Good
morning, Friend," to one elderly couple but it only provoked
a curious look and a muttering of Feorean.

Bligh approached the reception desk and, when he had
attracted the manager's attention, he asked about breakfast.

The manager gestured at a tall window to one side of his desk