"David Drake - Belisarius 6 - The Dance Of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Calopodius levered himself up on his elbows. "Then I will eat my share, no more." He chuckled, perhaps
a bit harshly. "And don't try to cheat, Luke. I have other sources of information, you know."

"As if my hardest job of the day won't be to keep half the army from parading through this tent," snorted
Luke. Calopodius felt the weight of Luke's knees pressing into the pallet next to him, and, a moment
later, winced as the bandages over his head began to be removed. "You're quite the soldiers' favorite,
lad," added Luke softly. "Don't think otherwise."

***

In the painful time that followed, as Luke scoured and cleaned and rebandaged the sockets that had
once been eyes, Calopodius tried to take refuge in that knowledge.
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It helped. Some.

***

"Are there any signs of another Malwa attack coming?" he asked, some time later. Calopodius was now
perched in one of the bastions his men had rebuilt after an enemy assault had overrun itтАФbefore,
eventually, the Malwa had been driven off the island altogether. That had required bitter and ferocious
fighting, however, which had inflicted many casualties upon the Roman defenders. His eyes had been
among those casualties, ripped out by shrapnel from a mortar shell.

"After the bloody beating we gave 'em the last time?" chortled one of the soldiers who shared the
bastion. "Not likely, sir!"

Calopodius tried to match the voice to a remembered face. As usual, the effort failed of its purpose. But
he took the time to engage in small talk with the soldier, so as to fix the voice itself in his memory. Not for
the first time, Calopodius reflected wryly on the way in which possession of vision seemed to dull all
other human faculties. Since his blinding, he had found his memory growing more acute along with his
hearing. A simple instinct for self-preservation, he imagined. A blind manhad to remember better than a
seeing man, since he no longer had vision to constantly jog his lazy memory.

After his chat with the soldier had gone on for a few minutes, the man cleared his throat and said
diffidently: "You'd best leave here, sir, if you'll pardon me for saying so. The Malwa'll likely be starting
another barrage soon." For a moment, fierce good cheer filled the man's voice: "They seem to have a
particular grudge against this part of our line, seeing's how their own blood and guts make up a good part
of it."

The remark produced a ripple of harsh chuckling from the other soldiers crouched in the fortifications.
That bastion had been one of the most hotly contested areas when the Malwa launched their major
attack the week before. Calopodius didn't doubt for a moment that when his soldiers repaired the
damage to the earthen walls they had not been too fastidious about removing all the traces of the carnage.

He sniffed tentatively, detecting those traces. His olfactory sense, like his hearing, had grown more acute
also.