"R. A. MacAvoy - L3 - The Belly of the Wolf" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

the mind.”
Andre Norton, author of Mirror of Destiny

“MacAVOY HAS JUST ABOUT EVERY SKILL OF THE ACCOMPLISHED FANTASIST
AT HER COMMAND AND DISPLAYS THEM ALL”
Booklist

“AN APPEALING AND GRATIFYING TRILOGY ... Quiet, unpretentious, vivid”
Kirkus Reviews

“HER WRITING IS AS FINELY HONED AS EVER ... I eagerly await Ms. MacAvoy’s next.”
The New York Times Book Review


At that time we were living in Canton, my daugh-ter and I, in what is said to be the largest port in the
world. The Carttoners justify this, claim by equating the Harbor with the entire country. Considering the
shape of the land and water (mostly water) that makes up Canton, I will give them no argument. We
were residing at the medical college, where I was translating manuscripts and she was pretending not to
teach, when I read, in a newspaper that King Ru-dof of Velonya was dead.
I remember I was in a coffee shop, and the paper I was reading (I have good vision for my age) was
not mine, but belonged to my neighbor to the left. There was some small disagreement about the
pos-session of the paper, which in my astonishment and shock I did not notice. When I became aware of
my-self again, I was holding the owner, of the paper with his hand locked behind his back in violation of
both his rights and his dignity. I remedied both of these slights with money, for the Cantoners have a very
commercial sense of honor, and I took the paper out-side.
I sat on a box, I think, and I am fairly certain there was a ship unloading only a hundred feet away,
across the stone paving of Wharf Promenade. There were cries in the air: sailors’ or birds’, I don’t
re-member.
It was as though this news had ripped me out from the fabric of my life and set me down once more
in a place of perfect quiet, perfect misery—ears ringing, sun too bright. I knew this place well since
Arlin’s death.
The article itself was short. It said the king had died in the capital, in his bed. In his bed, it said. I
could see that bed behind my closed eyes: his fath-er’s bed and his father’s before that, too narrow and
short for a man of Rudof s build and habits. I had been allowed to visit him of a morning in his royal rat’s
nest, where half the covers were in a ball and the other half on the floor. He was a man who threw darts
at the bedposts to punctuate his conversation. Whose feet poked holes in linen sheets.
My king, my fellow student, closer than brother. I felt the back of my head strike the bricks of the
wall, for I was rocking in place like a child with fe-ver. Huge man, quick and fiery, he had held my life in
his hands, forfeit by law again and again, and he had let me fly free—he who could never himself be free.
Words like these tumbled around my head, but they were only words, not real feeling. Not yet.
Dr. Keighl found me there, I don’t know how long after. “I see I can bring you no news,” he said.
I answered him. “You can tell me if it’s true.”
The doctor sat down beside me on the crate, all in his frock coat and gabardine trousers. Even at the
time I knew it a great condescension on his part “In over a year of running argument, Professor
Na-zhuret, we have not been able to agree upon the na-ture of truth. What now do you expect of me? I
will say I have heard it from sources other than this poor sheet.”
He called me “professor” because the university here had deigned to grant me an honorary degree of
Master of Arts some years since. I had no say in the matter.
Knowing better, I had to ask, “Then, there is no chance ... ?”
“There is always a chance.”