"Howard Waldrop & Leigh Kennedy - One Horse Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

Just as I say that, someone rounds the corner of the walls, barking, "Leocritus! Coroebus!"
It's Aeneas, that strutting smug know-it-all. He acts like the prince of princes and he's only a cousin of the
royal family here.
Leo says, "We were just noticing something a bit funny, sir."
"Yes," Aeneas says. He knew already. He may be proud, but he isn't slow.
We all lean over the wall and look into the dark nothing, hearing only the sound of the sea in the distance.
At least I thought it was the sea, but it wasn't. The sound had the wrong rhythm and was too close.
Then I lift my head. "By God," is all I can say.
It's even weirder than the kid in the wall. Dust-muffled footsteps in the sky, just over our heads,
accompanied by the slick sound of many shovels moving earth in unison.
When Leo bolts, I run too, and Aeneas follows. I take comfort in the fact that even Lord Aeneas looks
scared.
We slow down, sobered up, inside the wall.
Leo suddenly grabs my arm and says, "We're, uh... deserting our watch."
"Oh, yeah." I stop, hoping Aeneas doesn't think our excitement is too cowardly. But he also appears
shaken, trying to cover it with a lofty distant expression. "We'll just pop out onto the ramparts at the next
doorway," I say, pulling Leo with me.
"I'm going to find Cassandra," Aeneas says thoughtfully, turning towards the alleys leading to the town
center. "She likes interpreting signs."
Cassie! Her black-eyed glance can make me feel as low as a worker ant trudging through the dirt. Yes,
she's the one I fell for a couple of summers ago. Before she was weird. I had heard the rumors about her and
Apollo-that she dumped him-and hoped that meant she prefers us mortals. Imagine dumping Apollo, though!
What chance do I stand? I can't help it. Often, I volunteer for extra palace guard duty, glancing at her window
where I can see her sewing with her mother, Hecuba, both of them silent, worried, their golden needles
flashing.
I brush up my helmet's horsehair plume and suck in my belly under my cuirass to make my shoulders
look bigger.
If only I could have had the nobility of her brother, Hector, whose death recently gutted us all. If only I had
the wiles of Odysseus, the beauty of Achilles, without their Greekness....
I try to return my attention to the job at hand. Leo and I stroll the walls confidently. The plain is now silent,
the fires only smoldering orange embers, the beach dark. When we meet the men watching the north walls,
they agree with us that there don't seem to be Greeks below anymore. But none of us feel easy about it. Leo
and I don't mention the strange thing we had seen. We stroll back to the other side of the citadel.
Then Aeneas reappears, nervously scanning the air above us, Cassandra close on his heels. She's not at
her best, pale and looking as if she's been crying for a week. Well, she probably has. Ever since Hector died,
the women have been pretty soggy. But even as nervous and upset as she had been lately, tonight it appears
even worse.
She gives me a long stare from behind Aeneas. "Coroebus," she says.
My heart pounds. "Evening, Cassandra," I say.
For a moment, her mouth opens as if she wants to say something but Aeneas, points up in the air. "Tell
her what you heard," he commands to Leo.
"Uh, well, m'lady," Leo says, looking up over his shoulder. "They were like footsteps. Just above our
heads. And digging. Like…" He stops.
Cassandra hardly looks likes she's paying attention to him. She finds one of the archers' slits in the wall
and puts her head through. "So many of them," she says.
Leo, Aeneas and I all look at each other, puzzled. There was no one out tonight.
"A thousand ships full," I say. "So they brag."
"No," Cassandra says, pulling back slightly, then turning slowly and lifting her head. "Not them."
We all look where she's looking, roughly towards the horizon above Tenedos.
"Who?" I ask.