"Robert E. Howard - Conan - Shadows In Zamboula" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

With a hillman's stride he moved through the ever-shifting colors of the
streets, where the ragged tunics of whining beggars brushed against the
ermine-trimmed khalats of lordly merchants, and the pearl-sewn satin of rich
courtesans. Giant black slaves slouched along, jostling blue-bearded wanders
from the Shemitish cities, ragged nomads from the surrounding deserts, traders
and adventureers from all the lands of the East.

The native population was no less hetrogeneous. Here, centuries ago, the
armies of Stygia had come, carving an empire out of the eastern desert.
Zamboula was but a small trading town then, lying amidst a ring of oases, and
inhabited by descendants of nomads. The Stygians built it into a city and
settled it with their own people, and with Shemite and Kushite slaves. The
ceaseless caravans, threading the desert from east to west and back again,
brought riches and more mingling of races. Then came the conquering Turanians,
riding out of the East to thrust back the boundaries of Stygia, and now for a
generation Zamboula had been Turan's westernmost outpost, ruled by a Turanian
satrap.

The babel of a myriad tongues smote on the Cimmerian's ears as the restless
pattern of the Zamboulan streets weaved about him -- cleft now and then by a
squad of clattering horsemen, the tall, supple warriors of Turan, with dark
hawk-faces, clinking metal, and curved swords. The throng scampered from under
their horses' hoofs, for they were the lords of Zamboula. But tall, somber
Stygians, standing back in the shadows, glowered darkly, rememebering their
ancient glories. The hybrid population cared little whether the king who
controlled their destinies dwelt in dark Khemi or gleaming Aghrapur. Jungir
Khan ruled Zamboula, and men whispered that Nafertari, the satrap's mistress,
ruled Jungir Khan; but the people went their way, flaunting their myriad
colors in the streets, bargaining, disputing, gambling, swilling, loving, as
the people of Zamboula have done for all the centuries its towers and minarets
have lifted over the sands of the Kharamun.

Bronze lanterns, carved with leering dragons, had been lighted in the streets
before Conan reached the house of Aram Baksh. The tavern was the last occupied
house on the street, which ran west. A wide garden, enclosed by a wall, where
date palms grew thick, separated it from the houses farther east. To the west
of the inn stood another grove of palms, through which the street, now become
a road, wound out into the desert. Across the road from the tavern stood a row
of deserted huts, shaded by straggling palm trees and occupied only by bats
and jackals. As Conan came down the road, he wondered why the beggars, so
plentiful in Zamboula, had not appropriated these empty houses for sleeping
quarters. The lights ceased some distance behind him. Here were no lanterns,
except the one hanging before the tavern gate: only the stars, the soft dust
of the road underfoot, and the rustle of the palm leaves in the desert breeze.

Aram's gate did not open upon the road but upon the alley which ran between
the tavern and the garden of the date palms. Conan jerked lustily at the rope
which dangled from the bell beside the lantern, augmenting its clamor by
hammering on the iron-bound teakwood gate with the hilt of his sword. A wicket
opened in the gate, and a black face peered through.