"Alastair Reynolds - The Sledge-maker's Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

'''Some people were frightened too much when they were small,''' Peter said, with a dismissive shake.
'''No more than that. But the sheriff is real, and he was once able to fly. That'''s God'''s truth.'''

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Her hands were hurting again by the time she reached Twenty Arch Bridge. She tugged down the sleeves
of her sweater, using them as mittens. Rooks and jackdaws wheeled and cawed overhead. Seagulls
feasted on waste floating in the narrow races between the bridge'''s feet, or pecked at vile leavings on the
road that had been missed by the night soil gatherers. A boy laughed as Kathrin nearly tripped on the
labyrinth of crisscrossing ruts that had been etched by years of wagon wheels entering and leaving the
bridge. She hissed a curse back at the boy, but now the wagons served her purpose. She skulked near a
doorway until a heavy cart came rumbling along, top-heavy with beer barrels from the Blue Star
Brewery, drawn by four snorting dray-horses, a bored-looking drayman at the reins, huddled down so
deep into his leather coat that it seemed as if the Great Winter still had its icy hand on the country.

Kathrin started walking as the cart lumbered past her, using it as a screen. Between the stacked beer
barrels she could see the top level of the scaffolding that was shoring up the other side of the arch, visible
since no house or parapet stood on that part of the bridge. A dozen or so workers ''' including a couple
of aproned foremen ''' were standing on the scaffolding, looking down at the work going on below. Some
of them had plumb lines; one of them even had a little black rod that shone a fierce red spot wherever he
wanted something moved. Of Garret, the reason she wished to cross the bridge only once if she could
help it, there was nothing to be seen. Kathrin hoped that he was under the side of the bridge, hectoring
the workers. She felt sure that her father was down there too, being told what to do and biting his tongue
against answering back. He put up with being shouted at, he put up with being forced to treat wood with
crude disrespect, because it was all he could do to earn enough money to feed and shelter himself and his
daughter. And he never, ever, looked Garret Kinnear in the eye.

Kathrin felt her mood easing as the dray ambled across the bridge, nearing the slight rise over the narrow
middle arches. The repair work, where Garret was most likely to be, was now well behind her. She
judged her progress by the passage of alehouses. She had passed the newly painted Bridge Inn and the
shuttered gloom of the Lord'''s Confessor. Fiddle music spilled from the open doorway of the Dancing
Panda: an old folksong with nonsense lyrics about sickly sausage rolls.

Ahead lay the Winged Man, its sign containing a strange painting of a foreboding figure rising from a
hilltop. If she passed the Winged Man, she felt she would be safe.

Then the dray hit a jutting cobblestone and the rightmost front wheel snapped free of its axle. The wheel
wobbled off on its own. The cart tipped to the side, spilling beer barrels onto the ground. Kathrin
stepped nimbly aside as one of the barrels ruptured and sent its fizzing, piss-coloured contents across the
roadway. The horses snorted and strained. The drayman spat out a greasy wad of chewing tobacco and
started down from his chair, his face a mask of impassive resignation, as if this was the kind of thing that
could be expected to happen once a day. Kathrin heard him whisper something in the ear of one of the
horses, in beast-tongue, which calmed the animal.

Kathrin knew that she had no choice but to continue. Yet she had no sooner resumed her pace ''' moving
faster now, the bags swaying awkwardly, than she saw Garret Kinnear. He was just stepping out of the
Winged Man'''s doorway.

He smiled. '''You in a hurry or something?'''