"Jack Vance - Elder Isles 2 - The Green Pearl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

back to her spinning. "Tell me nothing; what I do not know I can not
prevent. I abhor the thing; it gazes at me like an evil eye."

Tamas uttered a queer high-pitched chuckle: so odd that Liba glanced
at him sidelong in surprise.

"Just so!" said Tamas. "It is a time for a righting of wrongs! If Sarles
complains, let him come to me!" With the pearl in his hand, he ran from the
house. Liba sighed and returned to her spinning, with a heavy lump of
apprehension in her chest.

An hour passed with no sound but the sough of the wind in the chimney
and an occasional sputter of the fire. Then came the lurching thud of
Sarles' steps as he staggered home from the tavern. He thrust the door
wide, stood a moment in the opening, his face round as a plate under the
untidy ledges of his black hair. His eyes darted here and there and halted
on the saucer; he went to look and found the saucer empty. He uttered a
cry of anguish. "Where is the pearl, the lovely green pearl?"
 Sarles clapped his hand to the bloody socket, while Liba stood back,
awed by the magnitude of her deed.

Sarles looked at her with his right eye, and stepped slowly forward. Liba,
groping behind her, found a broom of tied withes which she lifted and held
ready. Sarles came forward one step at a time. Never taking his eye from
Liba, he bent and picked up a short-handled axe. Liba screamed and thrust
the broom into Sarles' face, then ran for the door. Sarles seized her hair
and, pulling her back, did gruesome work with the axe.

Neighbors had been attracted by the screams. Men seized Sarles and
took him to the square. The town elders were summoned from their beds
and came blinking out to do justice by the light of lanterns.

The crime was manifest; the murderer was known, and there was
nothing to be gained by delay. Sentence was passed; Sarles was marched
to the hostler's barn and hanged from the hay derrick, while the village
population stared in wonder to see their neighbor kick and jerk by lantern
light.


III

OALDES, TWENTY MILES NORTH OF MYNAULT, had long served the
South Ulfish kings as their seat, though it lacked the grace and historical
presence of Ys, and showed to poor advantage when compared to Avallon
and Lyonesse Town. To Tamas, however, Oaldes with its market square
and busy harbour seemed the very definition of urbanity.

He stabled his horse and made a breakfast of fish stew at a dockside
tavern, all the while wondering where best to sell his wonderful pearl, that
he might realize a maximum gain.