"Charles Stross - Different Flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

She sighed, and suddenly he perceived the evanescent quality of youth that her husband Lord Stael must
have discerned in her when he married her so many years ago. "You are right and true as always,
Marcus: your Holiness. I should not lose my temper over such ... trifles. If the world is indeed coming to
an end, tonight of all nights, it is unfitting for me to reach the extent of my life as a middle-aged
harridan ... "

"How many years have you been lady of this demesne?" asked the Bishop, softly. He turned and stared
out at the shadows lengthening across the lawn below.

"Four decades past," she said quietly. With a gloved hand she gathered up the ice-blue skirts of her gown
and turned towards the table. "And I was thrice reborn when he married me: firstly as a sailor of no
consequence upon the Sea of Yang, then as a -- woman -- who met with an untimely end, and then into
my present skin. Three lives, Bishop: is that all there is to this universe? Come, let us join the gamers.
You are right as usual, it would not be correct for me to be inhospitable to my guests on this night of all
nights."

She extended her arm and the Bishop took it, escorting her across the mossy flagstones of the balcony
towards the gaming table at which the wizard and his companions waited. Behind them, the dancers
whirled to the strains of a chamber orchestra; they whirled as the rays of the setting sun lanced through
the tall glass windows and fell across the parquet for the last time; they spun like tops across the
polished floor as the sands trickled out through the smallest aperture of all, as the great and universa l
orrery ran down.

As they approached the table the Paramage glanced up. He paused in mid-sentence, his mouth open as if
entrapped in the incantation of some mystic function, and then he began to smile. As he smiled, the two
vacant chairs moved silently, turning to accommodate their approaching occupants.

"Good evening to you, my Lady," said Jack-Jones. "Is that not Bishop Moran you bring to our table? I
must admit I was half-expecting him. A delight, I'm sure!" He stood and extended a hand; behind him
the rogue and the cowled sacerdote rose to their feet..

Lady Stael extended an arm, and the Paramage bent to kiss her wrist. As his lips brushed the black
velvet of her glove a shot rang out from beneath the balcony, followed by a moan of utter despair and
loathing. The wizard and the lady froze as the hooded monastic turned to stare across the garden. "The
servants are playing Muscovian Roulette," he said, his voice bereft of all intonation. "The cook appears

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 Different Flesh

to have won. That is his wife's lament." There was a second shot, and the moaning ceased instantly. < P>
"Who will clear the dishes, then?" asked Lady Stael.

Jack-Jones smiled again. "That is hardly a problem," he said. "Come, my Lady! Eat, drink, be merry --
for tomorrow we will most certainly not be around to die."

The Bishop sat down uneasily. As he did so, the chair slid towards the table as if an invisible footman
stood at his back. He grasped the arms, feeling carved lion-faces press into his palms. "Would that I
could be so certain, your Excellency. If perhaps I have understood your prophecy correctly -- "

"Call me Jack, please!" said the wizard; "and I may call you Marcus, perhaps? My Lady, you are radiant