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

her delight was almost reward enough for him these days. She deserved everything in heaven and earth
simply for not being that Russian chunk of ice he had married first and foolishly.
I've made very few mistakes in my life but the Russian marriage was one, he thought. However, marrying
dear, beautiful, Greek Sophia makes up for that. I am rich, I am successful, I am famous, I have a loving
family.
Now all I want are some Trojan bones, and for that head louse Bötticher to sink into the earth instead of
writing all that vitriolic rubbish about me.
Suddenly, he groaned. His earache had worsened.
One of the Turks scrambled up to him. "Boss!" he said impatiently.
Schliemann realized the digger had called to him several times. He pretended that he had been
preoccupied rather than mostly deaf and turned slightly. The Turk handed him a shard.
Impossible. On it was the feathery curved design that Schliemann recognized as an octopus tentacle.
Mycenaean.
"Where did you get this?" Schliemann demanded in Turkish, glaring at the young man. A thought flared up
that someone was sabotaging the dig (Bötticher?) by bribing his workers to put Greek pottery in Turkish soil.
The Turk pointed, jabbering, but Schliemann could only hear the word "boss," which the Turk repeated
with respect over and over. He was excited. Then Schliemann thought he lip-read the phrase "much more."
Mycenae. Of course. Yes, how could I forget? Schliemann's mind raced as he followed his digger. The
royal families of Troy and Mycenae were guest-friends. It was on a royal tour of Sparta that Paris fell in love
with and stole Helen. Of course there would be Mycenaean pottery! It was probably sent to Troy as... say,
wedding gifts for Hector and Andromache.
The diggers were gathered at one corner of the trench, one of them carving the soil with his small knife.
Edges and rounded curves of pottery stuck out all along.
"My good men!" Schliemann said first in Greek, then Turkish, clapping his hands. "Good work. Early
lunch." Half the workforce put down their tools, wiping their foreheads and grinning. Then he repeated it in
Circassian and the remainder cheered and climbed out of the trench after the others.
Schliemann smiled and nodded, watching them go, saluting them with dignified congratulations. Then he
slid down into the trench and stroked the smooth edge of a partially-excavated Mycenaean stirrup cup,
elegantly decorated with stripes.
"Oh, Athena!" he whispered, his throat tight, ears banging painfully, eyes stinging. "Dare I imagine that
Hector himself drank from this cup?"
 He felt a change in the light and looked up with a start. At first he saw no one. He put the pottery shard
into his shirt, then found a foothold in the trench, climbing halfway up. The hill was a broken plane, gouged
mostly by his own trenches, but also by age. The city walls had grown weary with time, crumbled, grown pale
grasses and stray barley. Dark elms, losing their summer dresses, blew in the relentless seawind.
There. One of the diggers, lagging behind? Schliemann wondered. But he didn't recognize him. A young
man whose shirt had torn and was hanging on one shoulder. Not even a young man but a big boy, only his
upper half visible. Confused, Schliemann tried to calculate just which trench the lad was in.
"Hey, you!" Schliemann called in Turkish, scrambling towards him.
The boy turned slightly but didn't look at Schliemann. He was looking towards the tallest of the remaining
towers of Ilium and then he seemed to trip backwards and was gone.
"Local rascal," Schliemann said, irritated that his spell had been broken. Never mind. He returned to the
trench and took out his pocket knife to scrape, ever so gently, around the striped cup.
Already he was composing tonight's letters: two in English, to friends; two in French, to other
archaeologists; one in Russian, to his mercantile partners; another in Swedish, to a correspondent there; a
Turkish note to the Museum at Constantinople; a letter in Greek to his mother-in-law. Oh, yes, and he
needed to write to his cousin in Germany.
This was an incredible find.
He stuck his finger back in his ear as the roaring in it crashed into his head like the ocean. "Owww," he
moaned.