"Moorcock,.Michael-Castle.Brass.02-The.Champion.Of.Garathorm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Captain Vedla was also forced to smile. 'Fair enough, Count Brass! Yet when one considers the powers of the old Dark Empire lords and remembers the powers of those who helped us in our struggle, perhaps the idea could have some foundation in terms of our own experience?'
'Perhaps. And if there were not more obvious answers to explain Hawkmoon's condition, I might agree with your theory.'
Captain Vedla became embarrassed, murmuring: 'It was merely a theory.' He raised his glass to catch the firelight, studying the rich, red wine within. 'And this stuff is doubtless what encourages me to voice such theories!'
They both laughed and then they drank some more.
'Speaking of Granbretan,' said Count Brass later, 'I wonder how Queen Flana is coping with the problem of the unregenerates who still, from what she has said in her letters, inhabit some of the darker, less accessible parts of underground Londra? I have had little news from her in recent months. I wonder if the situation has worsened, so that she devotes more time to it'
'You have had a letter from her recently, surely?'
'By messenger. Two days ago. Aye. The letter was much briefer, however, than those she used to send. It was almost formal. Merely extending the usual invitation to visit her whenever I desired.'
'Could it be that, of late, she has become offended that you have not taken her up on her offer of hospitality?' Vedla suggested. 'Perhaps she thinks you do not feel friendship for her.'
'On the contrary, she is the nearest thing to my heart save for my memory of my own dead daughter.'
'But you have not indicated as much?' Vedla poured himself more wine. 'Women require these affirmations, you know. Even queens.'
'Flana is above such feelings. She is too intelligent. Too sensible. Too kind.'
'Possibly,' said Captain Vedla, as if he doubted Count Brass's words.
Count Brass understood the implication. 'You think I should write to her in more - more flowery terms?"
'Well...' Captain Vedla grinned.
'I was never capable of these literary flourishes.'
'Your style at its best (and on whatever subject) usually resembles communiques issued in the field during the heat of a battle,' Captain Vedla admitted. 'Though I do not mean that as an insult. On the contrary.'
Count Brass shrugged. 'I would not like Flana to think I did not remember her with anything but the greatest affection. Yet I cannot write. I suppose I should go to Londra - accept her offer.' He stared around his shadowed hall. 'It might be a change. This place has become almost overpoweringly gloomy of late.'
'You could take Hawkmoon with you. He was fond of Flana. It might be the only thing likely to attract him away from his toy soldiers.' Captain Vedla caught himself speaking sardonically and regretted it. He had every sympathy for Hawkmoon, every respect for him, even in his present state of mind. But Hawkmoon's brooding was a strain on all who had been even remotely connected with him in the past.
'I'll suggest it to him,' said Count Brass. Count Brass understood his own feelings. Much of him wanted to get away from Hawkmoon for a while. Yet his conscience would not let him go alone at least until he had put the idea to his old friend. And Vedla was right. A trip to Londra might force Hawkmoon out of his brooding mood. The chances were, however, that it would not. In which case, Count Brass anticipated a journey and a visit involving more emotional strain on himself and the rest of his party then that which they now experienced within the confines of Castle Brass.
'I'll speak to him in the morning,' Count Brass said after a pause. 'Perhaps by returning to Londra itself, rather than by involving himself with models of the place, the melancholy in him will be exercised...'
Captain Vedla agreed. 'It is something we should have considered earlier, maybe?'
Count Brass was, without rancour, thinking that Captain Vedla was expressing a certain amount of self-interest when he suggested that Hawkmoon go with him to Londra.
'And would you journey with us, Captain Vedla?' he asked with a faint smile.
'Someone would be needed here to act on your behalf ...' Vedla said. 'However, if the Duke of Koln declined to go then, of course, I would be glad to accompany you.'
'I understand you, captain.' Count Brass leaned back in his chair, sipping his wine and regarding his old friend with a certain amount of humour.
After Captain Josef Vedla had left, Count Brass remained in his chair. He was still smiling. He cherished his amusement, for it had been a long while since he had felt any at all. And now that the idea was in his mind, he began to look forward to his visit to Londra, for he only realised at this moment to what extent the atmosphere had become oppressive in Castle Brass, once so famous for its peace.
He stared up at the smoke-darkened beams of the roof, thinking sadly of Hawkmoon and what he had become. He wondered if it was altogether a good thing that the defeat of the Dark Empire had brought tranquillity to the world. It was possible that Hawkmoon, even more than himself, was a man who only came alive when conflict threatened. If, for instance, there was trouble again in Granbretan - if the unregenerate remnants of the defeated warriors were seriously troubling Queen Flana -perhaps it would be a good notion to ask Hawkmoon to make it his business to find them and destroy them.
Count Brass sensed that a task of that nature would be the only thing which could save his friend. Instinctively he guessed that Hawkmoon was not made for peace. There were such men - men fashioned by fate to make war, either for good or for evil (if there was a difference between the two qualities) - and Hawkmoon might well be one of them.
Count Brass sighed and returned his attention to his new plan. He would write to Flana in the morning, sending news ahead of his intended visit. It would be interesting to see what had become of that strange city since he had last visited it, as a conqueror.

2
COUNT BRASS GOES A-JOURNEYING
'Give Queen Flana my kindest compliments,' said Dorian Hawkmoon distantly. He held a tiny representation of Flana in his pale fingers, turning the model this way and that as he spoke. Count Brass was not entirely sure that Hawkmoon realised he had picked the model up. 'Tell her that I do not feel fit enough to make the journey.'
'You would feel fitter once you had begun to travel,' Count Brass pointed out. He noticed that Hawkmoon had covered the windows with dark tapestries. The room was lit now by lamps, though it neared noon. And the place smelled dank, unhealthy, full of festering memories.
Hawkmoon rubbed at the scar on his forehead, where the Black Jewel had once been imbedded. His skin was waxy. His eyes burned with a dreadful, feverish light. He had become so thin that his clothes draped his body like drowned flags. He stood looking down at the table bearing the intricate model of old Londra, with its thousands of crazy towers, interconnected by a maze of tunnels so that no inhabitant need ever see daylight.
Suddenly it occurred to Count Brass that Hawkmoon had caught the disease of those he had defeated. It would not have surprised the Count to discover that Hawkmoon had taken to wearing an ornate and complicated mask.
'Londra has changed,' said Count Brass, 'since last you saw it. I hear that the towers have been torn down - that flowers grow in wide streets - that there are parks and avenues in place of the tunnels.'
'So I believe,' said Hawkmoon without interest. He turned away from Count Brass and began to move a division of Dark Empire cavalry out from beyond Londra's walls. He seemed to be working on a battle situation where the Dark Empire had defeated Count Brass and the other Companions of the Runestaff. 'It must be exceptionally - pretty. But for my own purposes I prefer to remember Londra as it was.' His voice became sharp, unwholesome. 'When Yisselda died there,' he said.
Count Brass wondered if Hawkmoon was blaming him - accusing him of cohabiting with those whose compatriots had slain Yisselda. He ignored the inference. He said: 'But the journey itself. Would that not be exhilarating? The last you saw of the outside world it was wasted, ruined. Now it flourishes again.'
'I have important things to do here,' Hawkmoon said.
'What things?' Count Brass spoke almost sharply. 'You have not left your apartments for months.'
'There is an answer," Hawkmoon told him curtly, 'in all this. There is a way to find Yisselda.'
Count Brass shuddered.
'She is dead,' he said softly.
'She is alive,' Hawkmoon murmured. 'She is alive. Somewhere. In another place.'
'We once agreed, you and I, that there was no life after death,' Count Brass reminded his friend. 'Besides - would you resurrect a ghost. Would that please you - to raise Yisselda's shade?'
'If that were all I could resurrect, aye.'
'You love a dead woman,' Count Brass said in a quiet, disturbed voice. 'And in loving her you have fallen in love with death itself.'
'What is there in life to love?'
'Much. You would discover it again if you came with me to Londra.'