"Charles Stross - Examination Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Examination Night
Charles Stross
Midsummer night, and a thin haze of mist rose from the gutters. Vendors and
peddlars hawked their wares by the light of guttering oil lamps, long after most would
normally have been abed. A strange bustle of business kept them busy, tradesmen and
fishwives and dragoons and whores strutting and shrieking and haggling with forced
vehemence beneath the posies hanging from the eaves of taverns and shops; meanwhile
balls and soirees ran on late into the night among the scented gardens of the rich.
There was a dark undertow of fear among the revellers in the streets, and some of
them muttered prayers and cast out the evil eye with fetishistic regularity. It was a custom of
the city that on solstice night one must not sleep; for according to the legend anyone who
closed their eyes between sunset and sunrise would awaken to find themselves in the abyss.
Midsummer night was a time when the slings and arrows of fate were supplemented by the
guided missiles of demonic malice, for the University held it s graduation exams this evening.
It would therefore have been quite inexplicable to the ordinary town-dwellers to see Sebastian
wending his way through the alleys and smokey tavernae of the Lower City on the dog-watch
of this festival of grimness. Nevertheless, there was an entirely reasonable explanation: for he
would not be graduating tonight. Sebastian had decided to refuse his baccalaureate, and
having reached the limit of his tenure he would inevitably be sent down.
"Pissed as a newt," he sang tunelessly, wobbling from side to side in the narrow
Shambles, narrowly avoiding the dungheap in front of old Vladislaw's tannery: "Pissed as a
salamander of the eleventh order of syrinexae! Stoned as a basilisk's boy-friend! Drunk as a
student, for tomorrow they will send me down! Hic." He leaned against the wall, flask in hand,
and took a mighty swig from it. Frowning, he up-ended the vessel over the cobbles; what
remained of its contents dripped across the stones, glittering like blood in the light from the
leaded windows of the tavern opposite. "Fuck me, I must be mad! Worms on the brain. A bit
more balls and I could have – could be –" He looked up at the swirling clouds overhead, saw
complex shapes forming and dissolving among them with unearthly speed, and shuddered.
"Bastards." He spat the word venomously then heaved himself up and, dusting down his
tunic, stumbled over to the tavern door and banged hard upon it.
The door swung open, and Sebastian squinted at the gnomish shape of the bouncer,
Old Flog. "Loadsa dosh," he sang, waving his limp purse; "More wine, and faster!"
"So you think the master's going to let you back in here again after what you and your
catamite did to the cobbler's daughter last month?" Flog sneered at him. "Think again, you
swiving whoreson bastard nebbish offspring of a scholar's quill by a goose's bum! I'll give you
a sodding drink! Unless you can pay for the table and the pickled lampreys." He thrust out an
upturmed hand, yellow nails clicking impatiently. "Give me the purse, shit-face. Now!"
"There's three groats and a copper bit in there," said Sebastian, dropping the purse in
the bouncer's palm; "I want to stay drunk all night. Why don't you –"
Flog wasn't listening. He pawed his way through Sebastian's lucre like a miser
searching his ledgers for a bad debt, then shook his head. "You've got enough here, right
enough. Seeing you've got the money to pay for your past sins, I can't keep you out; but I can
–" a sharp-nailed claw jabbed hard at Sebastian's cod-piece –"promise you a rough ride if
you throw up on the cat again! Comprendez?"
Sebastian belched. "Of course; just show me to the bar and I'll be good." The gnome
nodded grimly and stood aside to let him enter. He stepped indoors without so much as a nod
at the bouncer, and the heat washed over him like a monsoon shower.
The Gibbet and Felon was not the lowest dive that the grand city of Rask could offer,
but it could certainly pass for such in refined company. It was distinctly unwise to enter and
linger there should one be a stranger to these parts; Sebastian, however, was safe. Students