"Jo Walton - The Rebirth of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

"Why, we roasted half a pig." she said.

This did not seem to satisfy Pappa Thomas. "What I heard," he said, "was that pagan gods were
mentioned. Is that true?" Katerina thought fast.

"Pappa Andros was there," she said. "He would surely have said something if anything was said that
was inappropriate. You should ask him." Pappa Thomas frowned. Katerina spooned up the yaourti as
quickly as she could, hoping he would accept that answer.

"But did you hear pagan gods named?" he asked, looking at her carefully. Katerina thought of that
toast to Great Pan. It was surprising that it hadn't echoed out of the taverna and woken the whole town.

"Only one god was named," she said, thankful that it was true. To avoid having to answer any more
direct and searching questions she asked one of her own. "Pappa, working in the taverna I hear a lot of
things. Is it true, as some men were telling me last week, that Ag. Dionysos found a sprig of vine growing,
and put it in a bird's skull to keep it safe, but it grew and grew so he put it in a dog's skull, but it spilled
out of that so he put it in a lion's skull and it grew out of that too, so he finally put it in a donkey's skull.
And that's why people when they get drunk first sing like birds, and then quarrel like dogs, and then get
brave as lions and finally as silly as a donkey?"

"It is the rankest superstition!" Pappa Thomas' frown creased his whole face. "These stories are
everywhere in the islands. Sometimes they are pagan traditions which have lasted from Homer's day.
That one may well be, it has the ring of it. Sometimes they are harmless folk tales, sometimes they are
pernicious. But all of it pollutes the true religion, the worship of the One God and his only son, Jesus
Christ."

"Thank you, Pappa," said Katerina. She had finished her yoghurt, she stood in one movement,
trying not to look as if she was shivering with the cold. "I understand that now. Thank you very much. I
will come and visit you again, but right now I must go because my mother will be expecting me home."

The little priest looked at her suspiciously, but he did not try to stop her leaving. As she ran home
she wondered if she should warn Yanni, or Pappa Andros. If everyone was making things, then sooner
or later somebody was bound to let something slip to Pappa Thomas. She sighed. If she warned them
she'd have to explain what she'd been doing in the church. They could look after themselves.

The next morning Katerina woke before the dawn, thinking she heard someone calling her name.
She got up, hearing the birds singing. There was one cloud in the eastern sky, a single wing of flame. She
dressed quietly and slipped out of the house, down the stairs that led to the street. It was pleasantly cool.
Nobody else was about yet, she had the town to herself. She headed down through the crooked streets
towards the harbour. The fishermen would be coming home, and the passenger boat from Kerkyra came
in at eight. It was always interesting to watch the unloading. She liked to see the shiny silver fish as the
men hauled them out into boxes. She liked to see the fishermen's faces, with the different look of men
who have not woken to it but come to morning through night. But somehow this morning she found her
feet took her away from the harbour towards the shingled strip of beach. To the north of the town were
cliffs, falling sheer into the sea, but to the south the land was lower, until it rose again a few miles along
where there was another tiny harbour and fishing village.

The shingle crunched under Katerina's feet as she walked past the olive oil factory, still and silent
now in June, when all last year's olives were golden oil already and next year's were still ripening on the
branches. She walked far out along the beach, not knowing where she was going or why, but feeling a