"Kate Elliott - Jaran 2 - An Earthly Crown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

Marco looked amused. "You aren't scared, going off like this to be thrown in
among savages? With no modern weaponry to protect yourself?"
"Certainly not. This is the most exciting thing I've ever done. I've never had a
moment's danger in my life. I auditioned for the Company because I loved the risks
Owen and Ginny were taking with theater, and with the traditions of theater. And
this! Well, I suppose Jeds will be much like any city, only dirtier and primitive. But
taking the theater out to these barbarian nomadsтАФthat's going to be a real
adventure!" She felt flushed, and she knew she was declaiming. But what did it
matter? Non-actors always seemed to expect her to talk that way offstage as well as
on, and it was true how she felt, and she felt it so deeply.
Marco watched her, looking, perhaps, a little wistful. "I wish I'd known you when
Charles and I started all this," he said softly. "I think you would have come with me,
the first of us to set foot on Rhui."
She stared, entranced by the green of his eyes. "I would have," she said, sure that
at this moment it was true. Though she knew he must be as old as her biological
father, he did not look ten years older than her, an attractive man made handsome as
much by the suppressed air of wildness about him as by any pretensions to beauty. A
man who knew adventure, who knew real danger, who had felt death close at hand
and looked it in the face. Her own life had been soтАФsafe.
"Goddess, you're young," he said, and broke the spell.
Diana blushed, but she chuckled. "That's put me in my place." She laid a hand on
the railing, a self-conscious pose, and looked down from this great height onto the
stage. "Oh. That's what you meant, isn't it? About choosing these plays for our
farewell performance. Tamburlaine was a nomad. Do you suppose the nomads we're
going to travel with have a Tamburlaine among them?''
She said it lightly, but Marco's lips pressed together, and his gaze shifted from
her down to the distant figure that was Charles Soerensen. Soerensen was speaking
easily with several people that even from this height Diana recognized, the Director
of the Royal Academy, the prime minister of the Eurasian States, a respected vid
journalist, the assistant stage manager, an usherтАФhe was a university student
majoring in xenobotanyтАФwho had once made a pass at her, and one of the clerks
from the box office who had brought her two children to meet The Great Man. A
sudden swirl of movement in the box steadied and stilled to reveal one of the tall, thin
alien Chapalii. The creature bowed to Soerensen, offering him the delicate crystal
wand in which the Chapalii conveyed important messages from one noble to another.
"I must go," said Marco. "May I escort you down?" He offered her his elbow, and
Diana placed her fingers on his sleeve. The contact overwhelmed her, and she could
suddenly think of nothing to say. Walking this close to him, down the carpeted
stairwell that led to the lobby, she could not imagine why he should be interested in
her at all, except, of course, that she was young, pretty, and blonde. This man had
explored a wild and dangerous world, alone most of the time, and he was the
confidant and right hand of the most important human alive.
"Shall I introduce you?" Marco asked suddenly, and too late Diana realized she
was being steered to the box from which Charles Soerensen had watched the play.
How could she refuse? She calmed her suddenly erratic breathing by force of
habit and let him lead her there.
A cluster of people walked toward them down the corridor. A moment later they
were swept into the retinue.
"There you are, Marco," said Soerensen. He held the crystal wand in his left
hand. It shimmered and glinted under the hall lights.