"Adams, Robert - Castaways in Time 02 - The Seven Magical Jewels of Ireland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

"But we had not proceeded far through the navy yard when an older man, most distinguished of appearance, with the walk of a seaman and the honorable scars of a veteran warriorЧneither of which had been evidenced by the supercilious, peacock-pretty, Roman puppy!Чconfronted us and announced that as senior captain of the navy yard, he had first claim on my person and time. The Roman first spluttered, then argued, then made to bluster, laying hand to hilt and calling up his pikemen. But when the older man whistled once and a double squad of matchlock-armed marines, the matches smoking-ready in the cocks, came trotting into view, the Roman backed off with the whinings of a kicked cur, whilst his own pikemen laughed behind their hands at his cowardice and discomfiture.

"And so it was that on that auspicious day, I made the acquaintance first of the renowned Conde Evaldo di Monteorso."

CHAPTER

THE FIRST

With his crippled galleon under tow toward a destination known to none aboard save the herald, Sir Ali ibn Hussein, Walid Dahub Pasha stood his quarterdeck at the side of the enemy's emissary. Walid still wore his best armor and bore cursive sword, big battle dagger, and slimmer boot dagger as well as several well-hidden edge weapons of varying sizes, shapes, and purposes.

Below, in the waist, Walid's one-eyed boatswain, Turgut al-Ayn, and his mates closely supervised the repair and/or replacement of both classes of rigging, now and again lowering to the deck a shot-shredded remnant of canvas or a splintered spar.

Still lower, out of Walid's sight on the gundecks, Captain Fahrooq had seen the last of the broadside guns unloaded, powder and shot and wads stowed in their respective places. The gunpowder was stowed back into copper-hooped casks. The casks then were carefully laid back in the security of the thick-walled, felt-lined magazine; the wads were, one by one, washed, squeezed dry, then stacked back in the wad chests; shot went into ready racks affixed to the hull above each gunport.

While a carpenter and his single surviving mate went about the patching of battle damage on the main gundeck, Fahrooq ordered the gun captains to set their crews to cleaning and polishing the secured guns and the mounts and ancillary equipment before once more shrouding them from damp and dust.

His immediate orders fully discharged, the officer made his way abaft to the spot whereon the surgeon and his mates had established themselves and their apparatus at the commencement* of this most costly conflict. Despite the long hours which had passed since cessation of hostilities, the sweating, blood-soaked practitioners still were hard at work with knives, saws, pincers, probes, and needles upon the latest occupant of their makeshift table, which dripped clotting gore at ail four corners and all along each edge.

As he waited for the senior surgeon, Master Jibral, to finish his current undertaking, Fahrooq took down one of the lanterns and began to carefully pick his way among the recumbent forms lying close-packed on the blotched and shadowy deck. His bootsoles grated on the sand which had been liberally scattered over blood pools to provide secure footing to Master Jibral and the rest.

He found two of his soldiers almost at once. One lay dead, cold, beginning to stiffen already. The other lay equally still, but he still lived . . . most of him, at least. His left leg now ended just a bit below the knee, but the stump was neatly done up in almost-clean bandages. Although the man's eyes were open, they did not focus; Fahrooq correctly surmised that the cripple had been well dosed with poppy, probably before they took off his foot and leg.

Further search revealed yet another wounded soldier, also poppy-drugged and bandaged, but no trace of the young officer he sought, his nephew, Suliman ibn Zemal.

While his assistants manhandled the last patient off the gory table to a place on the deck, Master Jibral wiped his red-dripping hands on his blood-soggy kaftan. Taking a waterskin down from a peg, he played the thin stream into his open mouth for a moment, swished the lukewarm liquid about tongue and teeth, then leaned and spat it into a half-barrel filled with severed limbs before again throwing back his head and swallowing a pint or so of the tepid water. When he had rehung the waterskin, he sighed once, then turned toward Fahrooq, smiling tiredly. The waiting captain shuddered involuntarily, for in the dim and flaring lantern light, in the close, noisome atmosphere of this place of stinks and blood and death, the surgeon's faceЧ with precious little skin visible under the layers of old and new blood, spade beard and mustaches stiff with cloned gore, the just-rinsed teeth shining startlingly whiteЧbore an uncanny resemblance to how Fahrooq assumed a man-eating Mareed from out the very depths of Gehenna must look.

But Captain Fahrooq was basically a rational man, nor did he lack of courage, Firmly setting aside his fleeting, superstitious fancy, he spoke formally. "Good Master Jibral, I seek young Lieutenant Suliman. His sergeant informed me that he was brought to you, wounded, early on in the battle. Where will he be found?"

The surgeon raised one bushy, clot-matted eyebrow. "Lieutenant Suliman . . . ? Oh, that must've been the one in the fancy lamellar djawshan, heh? In that pile of corpses in the outer space, there, probably on the bottom of the pile, or near to it."

Fahrooq sighed. "You . . . you did your best for him, Master?"

The surgeon shook his head. "I had another feed him poppy paste, Captain. Aside from that, there was naught any man could have done save to have given him a faster death, perhaps. When that ball hit this ship, it drove a sharp oaken splinter more than a cubit long and near a handsbreadth wide into the space between the lower edge of his djawshan and his private parts. Men with punctured bowels don't live, Captain, no matter what is done to or for them. His bowels assuredly were punctured several times over, and I would have been remiss in my responsibility to other men whose wounds were less grave had I wasted time on a man who could not be saved in any case.

"I tell you, his uncle, this, just as I would say it to Walid Pasha ... or to the dead man's father himself, should I be called upon to so do."

" You then are acquainted with the father of the late Lieutenant Suliman, Master?" The captain's tone was relaxed, conversational, but a barely perceptible aura of tenseness
surrounded him, radiated from him, and his right hand hovered near the access slit to a well-hidden envenomed dagger. H^s answer was a tired smile. "Captain, that secret was ill kept. I know who the young man was, and so too do the most of the original crewmen of this ship, though no one of the Westerners ever learned aught of it, you may be sure. I know just who and what you truly are, too, Captain, but that secret is no less safe than was the other. Why you are aboard in such guise I have no idea, but then the doings and schemings of such persons as yourself are not and should not be and have never been the affair of this lowly one.

"You have my sworn word that I will never betray you. If that is not sufficient to you, use that weapon beneath your hand. Otherwise, please grant me your leave to get back to my patients yonder."

"We're at least as safe here as we could be at Rutland or anywhere else, Bass," began the third page of KrystaJ Foster's letter. "Both King Arthur and King James are maintaining garrisons round about Whyffler Hall while the negotiations drag on, some of Hal's episcopal guards are usually in residence, Geoff has somehow raised and armed and mounted and is now training (he claims) a ragtag bunch of rogues from both sides of the border. He seems almighty proud of them, though they look to me to be just another pack of savage, deadly border bandits. But both Sir Liam and dear Uri assure me that Geoff s vaunted 'Whyffler Launces' are brave, stout, reliable, first-class troops, and as they both and Melchoro, too, often ride out with them, they're probably right about them. "I don't blame you about that Rutland business, Bass. You only saw it briefly and in good, warm weather. Honey, believe me, winter residence was just impossible. We could have burned every tree for miles around in those fireplaces (and some of them looked as if they could have easily accommodated whole trees, too) without getting much of the bone-deep chill out of those high, drafty rooms. Most of that pile was built in the thirteenth century, Bass, for easy defense, not for comfort.

"When I found chilblains on little Joe's hands and feet, I talked it over with Melchoro and Uri, then with Sir Liam, and we decided to come back up here to Whyffler Hall as soon as we could. If, as you indicated, Rutland seemed to offer more in the way of creature comforts than does your residence in Norfolk, then I can only pity you, poor dear, and hope that you soon will be free to join me, your son, and your friends here, in the north.

"I love you, Bass Foster, so take good care of yourself. No excuses, you are now a very important man to the kingdom, so let someone else take the chances and run the deadly risks; just recall what old Earl Howell told youЧThe Lord Commander of the Horse is not expected to lead cavalry charges any more than is the king; both are too important to the army and the kingdom to risk in open battle."

"I so wish that dear, jolly Bar6n Melchoro would stay up here with us, but he is insistent on joining you down there in the south, so he and his retinue and some score and a half of now recuperated gallowglasses will ride out in the morning and bear this letter to you from your loving wife. (Sounds corny, huh? But it's true.)"