"Peter David - Sir Apropos 01 - Sir Apropos Of Nothing" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

My teeth crunched down into his neck as if I were a tiny vampire. I was probably just hungry. If so,
the first liquid to cross my lips was not mother's milk, but blood, for that was what I drew when I bit him.

Stroker let out a startled yelp that was so high-pitched one might have mistaken him for a woman. "
Get it off!" he shouted and, matching deed to words, he shoved me off him and sent me tumbling through
the air. Had I landed on my head that might well have been the end of me, but Madelyne rolled across
the floor and caught me.

"It bit me!It bit me! " Stroker cried out, waving an outraged finger at Madelyne.

To which Astel replied, trying her best to maintain a reasonable tone of voice, "Consider you were
trying to kill him, Stroker. And consider who his mother is...and the violence of his conception. So he's
born with teeth and bites you? That's certainly apropos."

And to the astonishment of both Astel and Madelyne...Stroker laughed. It didn't seem like something
that was part of his character. He had appeared all bluff, bluster, and arrogance. He never seemed to
have any sense of humor at all. But there was something about the insanity of being chomped upon by a
newborn that appealed to his sense of the ironic...whatever that might have been.

"Yes," he growled. "That is most certainly apropos. That's the child's name."

"What?" Astel looked confused. "You...you can't name the child..."

"It's my stable, my inn. And I've never given a child a name before. Besides, you came up with the
name, not me."

"But I...that's...but..." Astel, now completely befuddled, turned to Madelyne.

Madelyne, for her part, simply lay there and gently stroked my hair, which was already coming in as a
fuzz of red. "It's all right, Astel," she said softly. "One name is as good as another, and 'Apropos' is as
good as any."

"He's still going to be bad luck," Stroker said, and he rubbed the base of his neck and glowered at
Madelyne, cradling her child in her arms. "At least now we'll have a name to curse when misfortune
befalls us." Then he turned on his heel and walked out.

"I thought the child was finished for sure," Astel said. She looked wonderingly at Madelyne. "It's
amazing how he changed his mind."

"Not amazing," Madelyne replied with a knowing smile. "It's...Apropos."

"It certainly is." Astel craned her neck slightly, trying to get a better look at me. My mother had used a
wet cloth to remove the normal blood and slime that one accrues while being born. "He's certainly well
on his way to having a head of flaming red hair."

"That's also apropos."

"What do you mean?"