"Clayton Emery - Robin & Marian - Dowsing The Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

sheriff, near Ealden Byrgen. This is my wife, Matilda. She knows some herbalism. We thought we might
help if someone was hurt."
The sheriff glared, still suspicious. Behind him, in the doorway, the porter raised his voice. "He speaks
true, Martin. He came out of the inn and we all broke down the door. He couldn't have murdered no
one, and he was just looking around while she there checked them dead folk."
Watching Robin with one eye, Martin the Sheriff asked the porter, "What mean you, broke down the
door? How could the door be barred if all within were murdered?"
"That's what I was wondering," Robin supplied. He wiped blood from the sting on his nose. The outlaw
usually took every man as he met them, without prejudging, but this sheriff had two counts against him
already. "On the backside of this door --"
"You belt up," the sheriff told him. "Keep out of the way and keep still."
Robin leaned back against the wall. Marian, calm as a cloud, seated herself on the red chest. The sheriff
squatted over the dead man, prodded the wounds with his club. The young merchant, face stained with
tears, raised bloody hands. "Sheriff, who could have done this? My father was a good, honest man! He
had no truck with necromancers! Yet he's been struck down by sorcery! It was no man born of woman
could have done this!"
The sheriff expelled a gust flavored with rye bread and beer. "I don't know, Peter. Wights and phantasms
can't touch iron, but I'd say this ungodly mess was from a steel knife, or I'm a bugger for a Jew. Still..."
He pointed his beard at the shattered door.
"Hoy!" called a voice from down the street. "Hoy! Come to save the day, I have!"
The crowd perked up. By now a hundred or more people crowded the street, all gawking at the
sensation through the doorway and one window. Most had been quiet, as if at a funeral, but now giggles
and whispers broke out. Robin peeked out the door over heads. Jogging and puffing their way was
something the outlaw had seen only at fairs.
Skipping like a milk-fat puppy bounded a man burly and jowly as Friar Tuck. Wild red hair fluttered. A
parti-colored smock, red on one side, blue on the other, circled the man with a broad yellow girdle, and
one hose was green and one black. Behind him scampered a dog brindled and golden as a butterfly, but
incomplete, being three-legged and one-eyed. This fat man -- or tournament marshal or mummer --
waved a dowsing stick like a giant wishbone.
Robin caught comments from the crowd. "Oh, Lord, look who's coming." "He'll know what to do." "Aye,
collect his fee and run." "He cured my mother of the boils." "Boils go away on their own, fool." "He'll
make us laugh, if nothing else."
"Make way, make way!" The fat man puffed amidst them. "Denis the Dowser's on the job! Let me
through! I needs see -- Saint Benno's keys and fishes!"
His pop eyes bugged even farther at the sight of the ravaged bodies. Robin noted the man had soft skin,
a weak chin, and little beard. He wondered if the dowser were a eunuch, and if that contributed to his
power -- if any. The crippled dog stuck his head between the dowser's knees and drooled.
"Denis, you big bag of wind." The sheriff stood over the body, club hanging. His sheepish son had crept
in behind him. "What are you doing here with your infernal stick? I know you can find water with that
thing, but there's no way you can track --"
"Ah, but I can, Martin! I can! By the tongue of Saint Genevieve I can! I needs only wave my stick
around the room and I'll track your murderers -- demonic or no -- to the ends of the earth! Shall I try?
Dare you I try?" The sheriff slapped his heavy stick against his thigh. "And you'll collect a fee from the
city if you're successful, I suppose."
The fat man smirked and spread his hands. "If you catch your murderer, what care you? Have you any
clues to proceed from now?"
The sheriff blew through his mustache, surveyed the hearth, the window, the door. Then he swept his
club towards the corpses. The crowd buzzed.
Gimpy dog at his heels, Denis the Dowser minced inside, skirted pools of blood, positioned himself
between the dead husband and wife. Striking a pose, the dowser dropped his head as if in prayer. He