"01 - The White Mountains" - читать интересную книгу автора (Christopher John)

Jack had always been around to lend a hand as long as I could remember. It was strange. I thought, as we walked toward the village, that in just over a week's time I would be on my own. The Capping would have taken place, and Jack would be a boy no longer.

Jack stood guard while I put the Watch back and returned the drawer key to the place where I had found it I changed my wet and dirty trousers and shirt, and we retraced our steps to the ruins. No one knew what these buildings had once been, and I think one of the things that attracted us was a sign, printed on a chipped and rusted metal plate:

DANGER
6,600 VOLTS

We had no idea what Volts had been, but the notion of danger, however far away and long ago, was exciting. There was more lettering, but for the most part the rust had destroyed it:

LECT CITY

We wondered if that was the city it had come from.

Farther along was the den Jack had made. One approached it through a crumbling arch; inside it was dry, and there was a place to build a fire. Jack had made one before coming out to look for me, and had skinned, cleaned, and skewered a rabbit ready for us to grill. There would be food in plenty at home-the midday meal on a Saturday was always lavish-but tins did not prevent my looking forward greedily to roast rabbit with potatoes baked in the embers of the 5re. Nor would it stop me doing justice to the steak pie my mother had in the oven. Although on the small side, I had a good appetite.

We watched and smelled the rabbit cooking in companionable silence. We could get along very well together without much conversation, though normally I had a ready tongue. Too ready, perhaps-I knew that a lot of the trouble with Henry arose because I could not avoid trying to get a rise out of him whenever possible.

Jack was not much of a talker under any circumstances, but, to my surprise, after a time he broke the silence. His talk was inconsequential at first, chatter about events that had taken place in the village, but I had the feeling that he was trying to get around to something else, something more Important Then he stopped, stared in silence for a second or two at the crisping carcass, and said, "This place will be yours after the Capping."

It was difficult to know what to say. I suppose if I had thought about it at all, I would have expected that he would pass the den on to me, but I had not thought about it One did not think much about things connected with the Cappings, and certainly did not talk about them. For Jack, of all people, to do so was surprising but what he said next was more surprising still.

"In a way," he said, "I almost hope it doesn't work. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be a Vagrant"

I should say something about the Vagrants. Every village generally had a few-at that time there were four in ours, as far as I knew-but the number was constantly changing as some moved off and others took their place. They occasionally did a little work, but whether they did or not, the village supported them. They lived in the Vagrant House, which in our case stood on the comer where the two roads crossed and was larger than all but a handful of houses (my father's being one). It could easily have accommodated a dozen Vagrants, and there had been times when there had been almost that many there. Food was supplied to them-it was not luxurious, but adequate-and a servant looked after the place. Other servants were sent to lend a hand when the House filled up.

What was known, though not discussed, was that the Vagrants were people for whom the Capping had proved a failure. They had Caps, as normal people did, but they were not working properly. If this were going to happen, it usually showed itself in the first day or two following a Capping: the person who had been Capped showed distress, which increased as the days went by, turning at last into a fever of the brain. In this state they were clearly in much pain. Fortunately the crisis did not last long;

fortunately also, it happened only rarely. The great majority of Cappings were entirely successful. I suppose only about one in twenty produced a Vagrant.

When he was well again, the Vagrant would start his wanderings-he, or she, because it happened occasionally with girls, although much more rarely. Whether it was because Vagrants saw themselves as being outside the community of normal people, or because the fever had left a permanent restlessness in them, I did not know. But off they would go and wander through the land, stopping a day here, as long as a month there, but always moving on. Their minds, certainly, had been affected. None of them could settle to a train of thought for long. and many had visions and did strange things.

They were taken for granted and looked after, but like the Cappings, not much talked about Children generally viewed them with suspicion and avoided them. They. for their part, mostly seemed melancholy and did not talk much even to each other. It was a great shock to hear Jack say he half wished to be a Vagrant, and I did not know how to answer him. But he did not seem to need a response.

He said, "The Watch ... do you ever think what it must have been like in the days when things like that were made?"

I had. from time to time, but it was another subject on which speculation was not encouraged, and Jack had never talked in this way before. I said. "Before the Tripods?"

"Yes."

"Wen, we know it was the Black Age. There were too many people and not enough food, so that people starved and fought each other, and there were all kinds of sicknesses, and ..."

"And things like the Watch were made-by men, not the Tripods."

"We don't know that"

"Do you remember," he asked, "four years ago, when I went to stay with my Aunt Matilda?"

I remembered. She was his aunt. not mine, even though we were cousins: she had married a foreigner, Jack said. "She lives at Bishopstoke, on the other side of Winchester. I went out one day. walking, and I came to the sea. There were the ruins of a city that must have been twenty times as big as Winchester."