"Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Mitchell)

army's inferior paper, then bind the note-books myself. Clumsy. Clumsy work.
There came a scratching at my tent-flap fairly soon after the New Englander's descent — a sight
(seen over the ranks of uneasy soldiers) to remember. It was all childhood's horror stories come to life,
though concluding as only a small girl swaggering with a sword. Her huge Made-beast left there,
crouched and moaning, apparently resting from its long flight.
A scratching at my tent-flap, as if a kept cat wished in — then the Boston girl's quite pretty face
peeping past the canvas cloth. She had set her large blue hat aside.
"Are you doing something private?" she said. "Something you wouldn't want anyone to see?"
 "Not that private," I told her. "Come in."
She ducked inside, very small in a voluminous coat — a coat freshly unpacked, by the even creases
in it, and made of dark-blue woolen cloth, finely woven and heavy, though not the equal of what Gardens
used to weave. I've seen no cloth of that quality anywhere else.
The young woman sat on the edge of my cot — perched there, her booted, blue-trousered legs
crossed like a boy's — and settled her scimitar across her lap as if it were a pet.
"Neckless Peter. Is that correct?"
"Peter Wilson — but yes, my friends call me Neckless Peter. 'Neckless' since my neck is short —
though originally 'Neck-lace' because I wore the gold necklace of Librarian in Gardens. The nick-name
was given me by a friend; I keep it in her memory."
"I know 'nick-names'; we called a friend Piss-poor Penelope, just for the three p's in a row. And
you're the intelligent person here, aren't you? Little and old, but intelligent?"
"I suppose that's true."
"Isn't it wonderful?" She made a child's face of wonder. "I'm little and intelligent, too! Though I'm not
old. So we can be friends, and find out things from each other. Try to hide things... then find them out."
"I don't doubt it, though I'm not told North Map-Mexico's secrets."
"Oh, you and I will discover them." She gave me that steady fresh regard — knowledgeable and
innocent at once — that children bestow on their elders. And I saw that she was dangerous, certainly —
would not have been sent, otherwise — but also, that she might be mad.
"You're thinking something about me."
"Yes."
"You think I'm very strange. Perhaps with a bird in my head?"
"Yes."
"And has it occurred to you, small, old, and intelligent one, that I might not be strange? That's it's
you people of the warmer places, you who haven't learned to live in ice without being swaddled and
farting in furs, who haven't learned to do even simple things with your thoughts, that you are the sad and
strange ones?"
"Yes, it has occurred to me."
"Then let me confirm it — it's the fact."
"Perhaps."
"'Perhaps.' 'Perhaps' is the curse of intelligence."
"…Perhaps."
She'd spoken like a clever child, but now laughed like a woman, richly, and in deeper voice. She
laughed, then recovered in near hiccups. "Now" — she settled herself comfortably — "is the young
Monroe, our Captain-General, a war-lord perfect, despite his losses here?"
"No."
"The Kipchak Khan, Toghrul, whom you betrayed — is that a painful word?"
"Only a little."
"He is believed in Boston to be a war-lord perfect, and almost certain to win, moving against Middle
Kingdom."
"Mmmm."
"You don't believe that?"