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

tips of the cats glittered in sunlight, and he saw the blood running.
Poor sinners, he said under his breath, while the frightened and excited horse
first snorted and then jammed backward, jarring the wagon and causing it to
yaw. Damiano slipped down from his seat and took the reins in one hand,
beneath Festilligambe's head.
The floggers wore robes, but they were not tonsured. After each blow they
paused to utter a penitential prayer. The victims were nearly naked, and they
did not make a sound. The monk in the middle, whose long scourge cracked like
a horsewhip with every stroke, was a huge fellow, full-faced yet grim, with
odd pale-blue eyes. A froth of blood spattered with each stroke. His
brown-haired victim might have been dead, for he lay in the stocks with no
movement.
These were felons, not cheeseparing merchants, Damiano decided. Someday
Gaspare would surely come to this, if he continued on his path. The lutenist
hoped his errant dancer had encountered this sight, or was perhaps watching
this minute from within the town. It would do him good.
Buy why had it fallen to the Third Order of Saint Francis to execute the
punishment of miscreants? Domini-
30
Damiano's Lute
cans, who were called the Hounds of Christ, would be quite at home in such a
role, and Jesuits even more so. But both orders were relatively dapper, and
most certainly tonsured. Franciscans were the only ones who sometimes went
shabby. Damiano had always felt a strong affinity for Giovanni di Bernardone
(called Francesco, or Francis), who had been a musician as well as a saint. He
was very disappointed to find that the Franciscans whipped people.
Even more upsetting was the fact that this display effectively blocked his
entry into the village. With difficulty he maneuvered the spooky horse off the
road and on to the trampled green at the foot of the wall. He yanked his bag
of clothes and cookpots through a hole in the wagon wall and dropped it on die
ground. Carefully he lifted out his lute and set it atop them. He slipped the
gelding's black head into a halter and untied its harness. Hie hulk of wagon
he left behind, half hoping it would be stolen.
Leading the horse, he would be able to pass between the stocks and the village
wall. He hoped his passage would not offend die clerics but, really, one must
be able to get in and out of a town, especially on market day.
Here the coarse singing was very loud, and shared by more than one voice.
Drunken, most likely. But the sound of a silver bell, rung by the middle monk,
cut through all, and as Damiano passed directly behind the burly flagellator,
the man leaned forward, threw open the stocks, and tenderly lifted out his
victim. Hie others did likewise, andu the poor sufferers staggered to their
feet.
Then, with a booming cry, die huge man tore off his rude and filthy robe and
flung himself into the stocks, which framework shook with the impact of his
weight. The other flagellators, tike shadows, followed. Despite their bloody
and battered condition, the former victims each picked up an iron-tipped cat
and set to work with a will. Even die middle one, whom Damiano had thought
half dead.
Damiano had heard of the order of flagellants (if indeed there was any "order"
about it), but this was his first sight of diem, and it left him feeling