"David Drake - Birds Of Prey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

whether or not he was a lip-reader. What interested Perennius more was the chance to determine Calvus'
homeland from the patterns within the Latin he was now speaking.

With two languages, Latin and Greek, a traveller could wander the length and breadth of the Empire
without ever being unable to order a meal or ask directions. From the British Wall, to Elephantine on the
Nile where a garrison watched the Nubians south of the Cataract; and from the Pillars of Hercules to
Amida across the Tigris, those tongues were in themselves entree to almost the smallest village. The
addition of Aramaic would add textures to the East and to areas of Eastern immigration like Rome itself;
but even there, the Greek was sufficient.

But Latin and Greek were not always, even not generally, first languages. There were still farms within a
hundred miles of the capital in which nurses crooned to infants in Oscan, for instance. Childhood
backgrounds gave a distinctness that went beyond mere dialects to versions of the common tongues.
Languages were as much Perennius' present stock in trade as swords had been when he served in
uniform. He was very good with both.
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But the stranger had no accent whatever. He spoke with the mechanical fluency of water trembling over
rocks. Calvus' voice had no more character than that of a professional declaiming a rich man's poem for
pay. He gave the words only the qualities required by grammar and syntax.

"If we sit here with our backs to the building," Calvus was saying with a nod toward one of the benches
around the fountain, "we can have our privacy. I should explain, Director - " he nodded in an aside to
Navigatus - "that the reason I have not taken you into my confidence before now is that I felt Aulus
Perennius should be informed by me directly. This way he will make up his own mind. There are risks
involved, and I understand your relationship goes beyond bare professionalism." The tall man seated
himself on the curved berth, gesturing the others to places to either side of him as if he were host.

Perennius grinned as he sat down. He wondered if Calvus had been told that the agent was Marcus'
chicken. Perennius had been a number of things over the years, but not that. Only the Empire had
screwed him.

Navigatus frowned. "I've read the letter," he said, tapping the wallet into which he had returned the
rescript, "and I understand my duty."

"Ah," said Calvus, "but one owes duty to more than the State, surely. There is one's - " He paused, his
tongue groping for a word that was not there - "there are friends, that is; and there is humanity as a
whole, don't you agree?"

"Sir, I'm not a philosopher," Navigatus said. His uncertainty as to the other man's position made him
more uncomfortable than he might have been in the presence of the Emperor himself. "The Bureau is to
give you full support, and it will - if you'll tell us what you require."

Calvus nodded his head upward in agreement. The agent was watching him out of the corner of his eye,
keeping his face turned toward the fountain. The pool curb of porous tufa was very old, like the statue
itself. The fountain could have been original to the house. Perennius knew that only two years ago, the
garden had been smoothly gravelled with no features but the battery of clerks who filled it. On drizzly