"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 4 - Book of Silence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

there had been faded and died. The townspeople watched, to be sure that the
overman was not looking at any of them.
Garth rose, and even the rustling of clothes and the bumping of chairs
ceased.
His gaze wandered for a moment from the old man to the great barrels of
beer and ale along the western wall. His mug was empty; he picked it up, made
his way through the tables and chairs, and drew himself afresh pint. The
innkeeper, a plump, middle-aged man, stood nearby and silently accepted a coin
with a polite nod.
Garth sipped off the top layer of foam, then let his gaze wander back
toward the Forgotten King's table, where it settled once more on the silent
old man. Without quite knowing why, he moved in that direction.
When he reached the table, he thumped his mug of ale down and seated
himself across from the King, as he had done so very many times in the past
three years.
"Greetings, O King," he said.
The old man said nothing.
Garth looked him over, as he also often had done. He noted again that
the old man's eyes were invisible, lost in the shadows of his ragged yellow
hood. No one, as far as Garth knew, had ever seen the Forgotten King's eyes. A
thin wisp of white beard trickled from his bony chin well down his
yellow-wrapped breast. His hands lay motionless on the tabletop, things of
bone and wrinkled skin more like those of a mummy than the hands of a living
man. The scalloped tatters of his robe hid the rest of him from sight, so that
little else could be said of his appearance with any assurance, save that he
was thin and seemed tall for so aged a human, though still shorter than any
grown overman.
Garth wondered, once again, why the old man wore rags and why they were
always yellow. Garth had heard him referred to as the King in Yellow, so it
was scarcely a temporary or recent habit, yet there seemed no reason for it.
The old man had money, the overman knew, and power, yet he spent his days in
this ancient inn and wore only tatters. When Garth had first sought eternal
fame, the Wise Women of Ordunin had described the yellow rags to identify the
Forgotten King.
Garth had long ago lost interest in the pursuit of undying glory that
had originally brought him to the King; the price had been too high and the
rewards, upon consideration, too intangible. He no longer had a single goal he
was consciously pursuing. In fact, he did not know any more what he wanted
from his life, though he was sure of certain elements. He wanted to go home.
He wanted the respect of his fellows, and to be rid of the stigma he now bore
of being known as subject to fits of madness. Beyond that, he was unsure.
He did know, however, that he wanted nothing from the old man, unless it
was the spontaneous renunciation of his oath. The King's gifts and bargains
always seemed to have unwanted strings attached; Garth's dealings with him had
been full of unspoken words and hidden meanings.
Still, Garth found himself at this back-corner table more and more
often.
It was, he told himself, a natural curiosity in the face of the old
mat's enigma that drew him, that and the lack of anything better to do. He was
without family or friends and had no job to occupy his time; why should he not