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

walk than the average child, and even when I finally did get the hang of it, it was only after a fashion.
When other children would run, the most I was able to manage was a brisk limp. For the first years of my
life, mother fashioned for me some crude crutches, which enabled me to get around with some vague
efficiency. I disliked them intensely, however, mostly because they underscored my vulnerability. This
was driven home by the tendency that patrons of the bar had to kick the crutches out from under me
whenever I would happen by. Since there was a steady flow of new patrons, each one thought that he
was clever enough to have been the first one to think of it. So down I would go, time and again.
Madelyne would always let out an aggrieved yelp, help me to my feet, and scold whichever patron it was
who had decided to show what a tough man he was by abusing a helpless child. Her ire would invariably
be greeted with guffaws, and a patronizing slap on the rump or a squeezed breast. This scenario played
itself out so often that I came to think of it as a sort of ritual and took no personal offense. Nonetheless,
the banged-up knees were certainly no fun, and I stopped using the easily targeted crutch by the time I
was five. Instead I substituted a stout cane. I didn't get around as quickly as with the crutches, but it
forced me to develop more strength in my left leg and a modicum of strength in my twisted right leg.
Whenever possible, I would even disdain the cane and--in the tavern, most often--make my way by
leaning on furniture or pulling myself around by clasping onto timbers in the wall. Consequently I gained
some considerable upper-body power, although I didn't think much of it as I watched other boys, both
older and younger, sprinting down the street with an ease that I could only envy and they could only take
for granted.

Nor did I think much of my mother's frequent male visitors. In retrospect, it is amazing what children
will take in stride. I shared my mother's small room. She had her cot, and I had a bedroll shoved off in
the corner. If it was night and I was in bed (or on floor, as the case may be), and the back room was
being used for some other private function, she would think nothing of bringing customers to our quarters.
I would lie there in the darkness and occasionally be lulled to sleep by the rhythmic creaking of the cot. It
meant nothing to me. It was simply what my mother did. I just assumed that everyone's mother behaved
in a like manner.

I was disabused of this belief when I was about six or seven. I had been working in Stroker's since I
was old enough to walk, or at least what passed for walking. I did whatever needed to be done, be it
cleaning tables or mucking out horse stables. I didn't have all that much contact with the rest of the kids in
the town, though. I was either too busy with my chores, or simply watching from a window and seeing
the speed and alacrity with which they moved, knowing I couldn't possibly keep up. This particular day,
though, Stroker had sent me on an errand, to fetch a new mug from the silversmith to replace one that
had corroded. I limped past a group of young boys who were gallivanting fecklessly in the middle of the
street--if a wide swath of dirt can reasonably be called a street--and they took notice of me. They
stopped their ball game, and one of the larger ones stepped forward in what could only be called a
challenging manner. His name was Skrit, and he was easily a head taller than I was. Still a child, of
course, but to me at that time, he appeared a behemoth. Skrit had a broken nose and scarred lip from an
earlier fight, and it was possible that he was looking for easier pickings.

I, in the meantime, was paying no attention to them, for I had found a coin lying on the ground. It
wasn't much, but it was sitting there dirty and forgotten. I wrapped my small fingers around it and
grinned. I had money of my own.

"Hello, Whore's Son," he called.

I glanced over my shoulder to see who was being addressed. It took me a moment to realize I was
the addressee. What threw me was the deceptively pleasant tone in his voice. To him, it was sarcasm.
But I was relatively friendless, knowing only the love of my mother the cot-creaker, the sympathetic