"R. A. MacAvoy - Damiano's Lute" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

he spoke it. "I wanted to see if you were still alive at all. You don't act
like it, you know, except when you play the lute. I thought maybe you died
last winter, during the battle of San Gabriel, and had not yet noticed.
"A man gets tired," Gaspare concluded, "of talking with the dead."
Still gaping, Damiano pulled his woolen sleeve up. "Mother of God," he
whispered, staring at the neat oval of broken skin, where stripes of crimson
were welling over the bronze. "You have bitten me like you were a dogl Worse,
for no dog has ever bitten me." His head went from side to side in shocked,
old-womanish gestures, and his eyes on the wound were very large.
Gaspare sat very tall on the wagon seat. The yellow
Damiano's Lute
15
and green of his dagged jerkin outlined the ribs over his emotion-puffed
chest. "Best work I've done in weeks," he stated. "Should have seen yourself
hop."
Then he settled in the seat, like a bird shifting its weight from wings to
perch. "You've been unbearable, lutenist. Absolutely unbearable for weeks. No
man with a spirit could endure your company."
Receiving this additional shock, Damiano let his wounded arm drop.
"Unbearable? Gaspare 11 haven't even raised my voice to you. You're the one
who has been howling and complaining since we hit the French side of the
pass...."
"Exactly!" The boy thrust out one knobbed finger. "Even though it is to meet
my sister we are traveling across France and Provence in cold, dry Lent. It is
me who complains, because I am a man. And you bear with me with a saintly,
condescending patience which undermines my manhood." Now Gaspare stood,
declaiming from the footboard (which wobbled) of the high seat.
"To err is human. Yes! I am a human man and proud of it! To forgive... and
forgive, and forgive... that is diabolic."
Suddenly the older fellow's dark fece darkened, and he kicked a wheel as he
muttered, "Did you have to say that—exactly that, Gaspare? Diabolic? A man can
also get tired of being called a devil."
Gaspare snorted and wiped his nose on his long, tight sleeve. "No fear. You
possess no such dignity. You are the unwitting—and I do mean unwitting—tool of
wickedness, designed to lead me to damned temptation! By Saint Gabriele,
Damiano, I believe you lost your head with that cursed Roman General Pardo in
the town hall cellar, for you've been nothing but a ghost of a man since."
Damiano stared at Gaspare, and then stared through him. Five seconds later,
for no perceivable reason, he flinched. His uninjured arm gestured about his
head, dispersing unseen flies. Without a word he stepped to the side of the
wagon and climbed into it through one of its large holes. A moment later he
was out again, carrying a bundle with a strap and another bundle wrapped in
flannel. The first he slid over his back {it made a tinkling noise) and the
second he cradled with motherly care. Then
16
Damiano's Lute
he strode off and disappeared to Gaspare's eyes, hidden by the bulk of the
wagon.
Gaspare heard the receding footsteps. He stood and hopped from one foot to the
other. Failing to see Damiano appear around the wagon, he sprang gracefully to