"Gordon R. Dickson - Call him lord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

animals so that I can memorize their names and please my
father when he shows up. What are those little birds I've been
seeing under the treesbrown on top and whitish under-
neath? Like that onethere!"
"That's a Veery, Lord," said Kyle. "A bird of the deep
 woods and silent places. Listen" He reached out a hand to
the gelding's bridle and brought both horses to a halt. In the
sudden silence, off to their right they could hear a silver
bird-voice, rising and falling, in a descending series of cr&-
scendos and diminuendos, that softened at last into silence. For
a moment after the song was ended the Prince sat staring at
Kyle, then seemed to shake himself back to life.
"Interesting," he said. He lifted the reins Kyle had let go
and the horses moved forward again. "Tell me more."
For more than three hours, as the sun rose toward noon,
they rode through the wooded hills, with Kyle identifying bird
and animal, insect, tree and rock. And for three hours the
Prince listenedhis attention flashing and momentary, but
intense. But when the sun was overhead that intensity flagged.
"That's enough," he said. "Aren't we going to stop for
lunch? Kyle, aren't there any towns around here?"
"Yes, Lord," said Kyle. "We've passed several."
"Several?" The Prince stared at him. "Why haven't we
come into one before now? Where are you taking me?"
"Nowhere, Lord," said Kyle. "You lead the way. I only
follow."
"I?" said the Prince. For the first time he seemed to become
aware that he had been keeping the gelding's head always in
advance of the stallion. "Of course. But now it's time to eat."
"Yes, Lord," said Kyle. "This way."
He turned the stallion's head down the slope of the hill they
were crossing and the Prince turned the gelding after him.
"And now listen," said the Prince, as he caught up. "Tell
me I've got it all right." And to Kyle's astonishment, he began
to repeat, almost word for word, everything that Kyle had
said. "Is it all there? Everything you told me?"
"Perfectly, Lord," said Kyle. The Prince looked slyly at
him.
"Could you do that, Kyle?"
"Yes," said Kyle. "But these are things I've known all my
life."
"You see?" The Prince smiled. "That's the difference be-
tween us, good Kyle. You spend your life learning something
1 spend a few hours and I know as much about it as you
do."
"Not as much, Lord," said Kyle, slowly.
The Prince biinked at him, then jerked his hand dismiss-
ingly, and half-angrily, as if he were throwing something
aside.
"What little else there is probably doesn't count," he said.