"L. Sprague De Camp - Two Yards of Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

counties of the Empire. When they reached lands where they could
no longer understand the local dialects, they made shift with Hella. die, the
tongue of the Old Napolitanian Empire, which lettered men spoke everywhere.
They stopped at inns where inns were to be had. For the first fortnight,
Eudoric was too preoccupied with dreams of his beloved Lusina to notice the
tavern wenches. After that, his urges began to fever him, and he bedded one in
Zerbstat, to their mutual satisfaction. Thereafter, however, he forebore, not
as a matter of sexual morals but as a matter of thrift.
When benighted on the road, they slept under the stars-or, as befell
them on the marches of Avaria, under a rain-dripping canopy of clouds. As they
bedded down in the wet, Eudoric asked his companion:
"Jillo, why did you not remind me to bring a tent?"
Jillo sneezed. "Why, sir, come rain, come snow, I never thought that so
sturdy a springald as ye be would ever need one. The heroes in the romances
never travel with tents."
"To the nethermost hell with heroes of the romances! They go clattering
around on their destriers for a thousand cantos. Weather is ever fine. Food,
shelter, and a change of clothing appear, as by magic, whenever desired. Their
armor never rusts. They suffer no tisics and fluxes. They pick up no fleas or
lice at the inns. They're never swindled by merchants, for none does aught so
vulgar as buying and selling."
"If ye'll pardon me, sir," said Jillo, "that were no knightly way to
speak. It becomes not your station."
"Well, to the nethermost hells with my station, tool 'Wherever these
paladins go, they find damsels in distress to rescue, or have other agreeable,
thrilling, and sanitary adventures. What adventures have we had? The time we
fled from robbers in the Turonian Forest. The time I fished you out of the
Albis half drowned. The time we ran out of food in the Asciburgi Mountains and
had to plod fodderless over those hair-raising peaks for three days on empty
stomachs."
"The Divine Pair do but seek to try the mettle of a valorous aspirant
knight, sir. Ye should welcome these petty adversities as a chance to prove
your manhood."
Eudoric made a rude noise with his mouth. "That for my manhood! Right
now, I'd fainer have a stout roof overhead, a warm fire before me, and a hot
repast in my belly. An ever I go or' such a silly
jaunt again, I'll find one of those versemongers-like that troubadour, Landwin
of Kromnitch, that visited us yesteryear-and drag him along, to show him how
little real adventures are like those of the romances. And if he fall into the
Albis, he may drown, for all of me. Were it not for my darling Lusina-"
Eudoric lapsed into gloomy silence, punctuated by sneezes.

They plodded on until they came to the village of Liptaf, on the border
of Pathenia. After the border guards had questioned and passed them, they
walked their animals down the deep mud of the main street. Most of the
slatternly houses were of logs or of crudely hewn planks, innocent of paint.
"Heaven above!" said Jillo. "Look at that, sir!"
"That" was a gigantic snail shell, converted into a small house.
"Knew you not of the giant snails of Pathenia?" asked Eudoric. "I've
read of them in Doctor Baldonius' encyclopedia. When full grown, they-or