"Anthony, Piers- Incarnations of Immortality 4- Wielding a Red Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

The clown did a front-flip in the air, then stood on his hands, then flipped back to his feet.

"So-so," the master said, unimpressed. "Can you do it on a high platform?"

The clown nodded. There was no platform handy, so he scrambled lithely up a tree and took his stance on a horizontal branch. He repeated his flip and handstand, then swung himself down, around, and back to the top of the branch.

The master became more interested. No fear of heights, eh? What else can you do?"

"He says he can juggle," Orb explained.

"Jugglers are a dime a dozen. He'd have to be something special."

The clown pointed to a collection of knives, used by a sometime knife-thrower. Then, with permission, he took five, tossed them up singly, and juggled them. The blades flashed as they twisted in the air, but no knife dropped to the ground.

"What else?" the master asked, impressed.

The clown had evidently prepared for this. He went into a mime act, doing a clever imitation of a warrior whose sword kept getting in his way. He had no costume and no sword, but it came across clearly. When he managed to spear his own foot, the master smiled. When he tried to sheathe the blade rapidly and passed it through his crotch instead, the master laughed.

"You got it, mime! Work up a complete act; I'll put you on pay. We'll call you-urn, let's see." The master stroked his chin. "The Mime. No, Mym. Mym the Mime! You've got a talent, boy. Wish I'd known before."

And so he joined the paid performers, leaving the dragon dung behind. "I had no idea!" Orb told him warmly. "You are a very talented person, Mym."

It was merely coordination and training, he informed her, as much by gesture as by words, for he did not like to embarrass them both by constant stammering. Orb was always understanding, but still it represented an imposition, and the last thing he wanted to do was burden a woman as lovely, inside and out, as she.

But her interest in him had been aroused, and his ascension to performer status brought them into closer natural association. Though the group was casteless-which made it technically Pariah-it did have its own type of stratification, with the master at the top, the performers next, and the menials at the bottom. Orb, as the main attraction, was second only to the master in importancebut as Mym refined his act and the flow of rupees increased, his status ascended correspondingly. At first the others had been condescending or diffident, because of his speech impediment and his inexperience, but no one laughed at him, because all were outcasts in their own fashions. The mahout who tended the lead elephant had a clubfoot, and the dragon-trainer was an alcoholic-the dragon liked the smell of alcohol-and the cook was so grossly fat that he expected in due course to assume performer status as a freak. None of them were inclined to laugh at something as minor as stuttering.

In fact, Mym discovered that the group was a kind of family; it looked out for its own, and he had become a part of it. This became clear one day when they were setting up for a show in a village not far south of Ahmadabad, the giant capital ofGujarat. He was helping the exotic dancer, Pythia, prepare for her act. She had to strip and spread a special protective grease over all her body, so that the digestive acids of the python would not damage her skin. She had a magic pill she would gulp just before the snake swallowed her head that enabled her to stop breathing for twenty minutes or so; that and the salve enabled her to perform her act once each day. But the girl who normally helped her and who reached into the python's open mouth to haul her out by the feet when the act was over, had run away with a handsome drifter, and a replacement had not yet been recruited. So Mym, whose act was done before hers, helped her with the preparation and the conclusion.

He was spreading the salve on her body, making sure to catch every spot, when they were interrupted by a party of armed, uniformed officers of the Gujarat law-enforcement staff. "Stand where you are, masked man!" one snapped at Mym, holding his sword ready. "Identify yourself."

Mym, of course, was unable to respond, in part because of the stutter. Had they found him? He had thought he was free ...

The dancer, knowing his problem, faced the troops. Her breasts shone with grease and became more pronounced as she inhaled. "This is a private dressing room!" she protested in the local dialect.

The chief officer contemplated her assets. "This is Kingdom business, woman," he said gruffly. "We are in pursuit of a party of thuggees. They may have passed this way-and this man is masked."

"This man is my assistant!" she exclaimed, taking a really significant breath. "He is no thuggee! He has been with me all day!" She shook herself, and all three officers struggled not to gape. "He wears a mask so the fumes of the python won't hurt his face." She snapped her fingers, and the great snoozing snake woke and lifted its snout, hissing.

The men backed away. "To be sure," the leader said.

"If you speak for him-"

"Of course I speak for him!" she said. "I couldn't function without him."

They departed, and Mym relaxed. He resumed spreading the salve. "Certainly I spoke for you," Pythia said.

"I didn't even have to lie, really, but I would have. I know you're no thuggee, and whatever you did do to make you hide is no business of mine. We cover our own, here." He continued with the salve, not trying to speak.

"You do a good job," she added reflectively. "Your hands are clever. You get me covered much faster and better than I could do myself, even in the easy places. That girl I had before never was much good; she'd tickle me in one place and skimp on another."