"Martha Wells - Wheel of the Infinite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells Martha)

was in a better humor after a hot meal and almost looking forward to the performance.
At twilight they lit torches around a flattened spot of ground between the merchants’ wagons and
theirs. The Mahlindi brought woven mats to protect their brightly patterned robes from the grass and
proceeded to arrange themselves in orderly rows without having to be asked. There were only three chief
merchants, identifiable by the clan markings on their cheeks and foreheads, but they had each brought at
least a dozen apprentices and servants. Their guards and drivers arrived in a grumbling, reluctant group
behind them.
Maskelle moved back out of the torchlight, back to the open area between the two wagon camps,
where she could see the stage, the front of the outpost, the place on the bank where the boats were
drawn up, and the road where it curved past the trees. She sat on the wet grass, feeling the damp seep
up through her robes. The life and torchlight around the makeshift stage seemed like an isolated pocket in
a night of wild darkness. The wind had risen again, tossing the tops of the trees and sending fast-moving
clouds across the moon. The lights in the post were dimmed by shutters and the inhabitants had
withdrawn from the balconies.
Rastim walked out to the center of the stage, made the odd Ariaden bow that was the same for
everyone, whatever their rank, and the play began. Maskelle gave it only part of her attention; she was
listening to the night. She had the growing feeling that it was trying to tell her something.
The Ariaden had been unable to resist including puppets, and Firac’s sons Thae and Tirin appeared
each with one of the big walking puppets. These were elaborate contraptions that fastened to the
operator at the feet and waist, and could be manipulated with rods held in the operators’ hands. The
troupe owned larger ones that took two operators, one sitting on the other’s shoulders, but these were
relatively small and only towered a few feet over the boys’ heads.
The appearance of the puppets, the light wooden bodies brightly painted and the distorted heads with
their clacking jaws, brought the curious boatmen over. Drawn by the laughter and applause of the
Mahlindi, a party of wealthier travellers, probably passengers from the barge that was weathering the bad
currents, came down from the post. Most of these people had never seen the elaborate Ariaden puppets
before and there was much whispered commentary in the crowd. Someone else was drawn by the noise
as well.
Maskelle looked for him, and saw him finally just beyond the reach of the torches, sitting on the grass
and watching. It gave her more information about him, though it was nothing that made any particular
sense. She wasn’t sure how a Sitanese outcast could have seen kiradi theater before, but he got the joke
that even passed the Mahlindi by, the one that appeared to be an innocuous remark about idle hands and
was actually a subtle innuendo implying masturbation, to the point where he actually fell over on his side
with laughter.
A burst of applause made Maskelle glance at the stage. At first she thought the figure crossing in front
of Therasa and Dona’s scene was a child, escaped from some parent in the audience. It was a puppet.
“Great Days in the Dawn of Life,” Maskelle swore, starting to her feet. How did that damn thing
get out? She circled the crowd hastily, coming up on the wagon that formed the stage right entrance. She
caught Rastim as he pelted into her and dragged him behind the wagon.
“I don’t know,” he whispered frantically, answering the question she hadn’t had the chance to ask
yet. “Thae and Tirin got the Aldosi out of their boxes, but they know better, they would never—”
 “I know they wouldn’t.” Maskelle leaned around the wagon to peer at the stage. The animate puppet
was standing, staring out at the audience, the painted face expressionless. Therasa and Doria were still
saying their lines, but they were casually putting distance between themselves and the puppet. The crowd
still thought it was part of the show; to people unused to puppets, the one that was walking by itself was
no more miraculous than the two that had been controlled by the young boys. Firac and Gardick were
standing out of sight of the crowd near the wagon marking the opposite end of the stage; Firac was
holding a net. Maskelle shook her head. That wasn’t going to do much good.
All the Ariaden puppets had names: the Aldosi were the two big walking puppets Thae and Tirin
were working. The one that was working itself had been Gisar, a clown puppet manipulated by strings