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

totemic lion: powerless but kept around to flourish when real authority lacks color.
“My lord, what can I do for you?” I asked, to cut through the politesse. I wanted to be left alone
today. I wanted to see what the explosion had done. I feared Sninden and my daughter would be carried
away by enthusiasm and do it again, this time with-out me.
He bowed, leaning over my head. “I come to offer you the sympathies of the state, sir. In your loss.”
I almost laughed at the idea of a state having sym-pathies. Most nations seem to have only the most
selfish of emotions, and Canton had none at all, only rates and tariffs. I asked the man how he had
chosen me for his condolences, and he said, “It’s common knowledge you were one of King Rudof’s
dosest friends. That you knew him from school.”
“No, I didn’t,” I answered, and I crooked a finger for him to follow me into the dim, armored room
where Sninden and Nahvah were bent over the bar-rel of the breechloader.
“It worked splendidly,” said the gunsmith.
“We can’t get the casing out now,” added Navvie, who has no more courtesy than I have. “I’m
working on it with a pry.”
I approached the steel barrel and felt it. I put my hand on the flange of brass at the bottom of the
slug-casket.
“Watch, Papa. It’s still hot,” she said, and I re-turned that I believed her. I blew down the barrel,
forcefully, getting a faceful of stink and oily dirt, and I heard her say the thing was coming out.
The little casing looked sound, except for the dis-coloration where the primer had struck powder and
the smears of brightness where it had been forced from the barrel.
Sninden was magnificent at ignoring the lordship in his gallery. “The idea is sound, girl. Only the
slug-casket needs to be reduced in size a trifle.”
“Then it won’t block the backfire, and we’ll be where we started, with blown breeches and split
bar-rels.”
The council lord plucked my sleeve and I was led again into the display room. “You subject your
daughter to that stench and noise, sir?” He was ready to make a joke about it. A friendly joke.
“No, I abhor guns. She subjects me,” I answered, and once again I asked the state’s man—the
stately man—what he wanted of me.
Lord Damish stared at me a long moment and then asked very plainly what I was planning to do
about the death of King Rudof.
I had resented the man’s, artificiality, but I re-sented more his pointed honesty. “He is dead, I’m
told,” I answered, “and it’s too late to do’ anything at all about it.”
Dead. “If it is dead, then it had better pass out,” had said Arlin, about a miscarriage. Arlin, too, was
dead. Could one word stop so much?
“Are you planning to return home?”
I told him I had no plans. That was true enough. I might have as perfectly told him that I had no
home.
“I ask because Canton is concerned. Canton is con-cerned because Lowcanton is concerned. It’s
not vul-gar curiosity on my part.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure it is nothing vulgar, on any-one’s part but, my lord, I still have no plans.”
The tall lord sighed. “I obviously came too soon. Please send for me when you have thought.” He
stalked the length of the room and then bowed. “Duke Timet.” Then he bowed again. “Arninsan-aur.” I
heard him going down the stairs.
Navvie was at my back, as was Sninden. “Papa, you have more sets of names than anyone I know.”
“He certainly put me in my place with them,” I said, and Si ‘linden dropped the cooled brass casing
in my hand.
That evening the port of Canton was more beautiful than I had ever seen it. The quiet water, deep
enough not to be muddied by traffic, lapped at the multitude of piers. The wavelets were bright and the
piers were black, in a pattern like winter branches against the sky. The real sky was washed in flesh
colors: pink, ivory, and sallow, and someone hidden was playing, a reed box with tinny, lonely sounds. I