"David Drake - Belisarius 2 - In The Heart Of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

He had been disgusted the entire evening.
The two churchmen in the room disgusted him with their sanctimonious prattle.
Glycerius of Chalcedon and George Barsymes were deacons, acting on behalf of
Rufinus Namatianus, Bishop of Ravenna. They were rabidly orthodox. But, at
bottom, their orthodoxy was nothing but a veil for ambition. The Bishop of
Ravenna sought the papacy, and his underlings sought the patriarchates of
Constantinople and Alexandria.
Ambition was the seventh man's motive also, but he did not disguise it with
false piety. (A ridiculous piety, to boot -- allying with Hindu heathens
against Christian heretics.) The seventh man counted many sins against his
soul, mortal and venial alike. But hypocrisy was not among them.
The two noblemen in the room disgusted him with their swaggering braggadocio.
Their names were Hypatius and Pompeius. They were brothers, the nephews of the
former emperor Anastasius. By any formal dynastic criterion, they were the
rightful heirs to the imperial throne. But Romans had never worshipped at the
altar of heredity. Competence was the ultimate standard for wearing the
purple. And if there were two more feckless creatures in the entire Roman
empire, they were hiding themselves well.
The other high Roman official in the room disgusted him. John of Cappadocia,
his name was, and he was Emperor Justinian's Praetorian Prefect. A ruthless
and capable man, to be sure. But one whose rapaciousness and depravity were
almost beyond belief. Murderer, thief, extortionist, torturer, rapist -- all
these things John of Cappadocia had been named. The names were all true.
The two Malwa spies in the room disgusted him -- Balban the oily spymaster
even more than Ajatasutra the assassin -- partly for their false bonhomie and
pretense of comradeship, but mostly for their claim of disinterested concern
for the best interests of Rome, which no one but an idiot would believe for an
instant. The seventh man was very far from being an idiot, and he took the
Malwa air of innocence as an insult to his intelligence.
The seventh man was disgusted with himself. He was the Grand Chamberlain of
the Roman Empire. He was one of the most valued and trusted advisers of
Emperor Justinian, whom he planned to betray. He was the close personal friend
of the Empress Theodora, whom he planned to murder. He would add the count of
treason to his sins, and increase the counts of murder, and all for the sake
of rising one small rung in power. He was a eunuch, and so could never aspire
to the throne himself. But he could at least become the Grand Chamberlain of a
feckless emperor, instead of a dynamic one, and thus be the real power in
Rome.
The seventh man knew, with all the intelligence of a keen mind, that his
ambition was stupidity incarnate. He was an old man. Even if he realized his
ambition, he would probably not enjoy its exercise for more than a few years.
For that stupid, petty ambition, the seventh man risked the possibility of
execution and the certainty of eternal damnation. He despised himself for that
pettiness, and was disgusted by his own stupidity. But he could not do
otherwise. For all that he prided himself on his iron self-control, the
seventh man had never been able to control his ambition. Ambition rode the
eunuch like lust rides a satyr. It had ridden him as far back as he could
remember, since the days when other boys had taunted and beaten him for his
castrated deformity.
But, above all, the seventh man was disgusted because the Malwa and the Roman