"Linda Evans - Time Scout 2 - Wages of Sin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

syllables, Marcus heard plainly a malice thick as unwatered Roman wine. It
hung on the air between them for just an instant. Then she whirled and left,
flinging over her shoulder, "Why you choose to become friends with uneducated,
half-wild downtimers who can scarce bathe themselves properly is beyond me. It
will be your ruin."
Then she was gone.
Marcus discovered he was shaking with rage. His dislike of Goldie Morran
and her sharp tongue and prejudices had just changed in a way that frightened
him. Dislike had flared like a fire in high wind, smoldering from a half-burnt
lump of coal to a roaring conflagration consuming his soul-and everything
foolish enough to come too close.
Marcus was proud of his recently acquired education, which included several
languages, new and wonderful sciences that seemed like the magical
incantations that made the world run its wandering course through the stars-
rather than the stars wandering their courses around it-even mathematics
explained clearly enough that he had been able to learn the new ways of
counting, multiplying, dividing, learning the basics of multicolumn
bookkeeping along with the new tools-all of it adding up to something no
scribe or mathematician in all of Ancient Rome could do.
Perhaps a boy from Gallia Comata could be considered half-wild, but even as
a chained, terrified boy of eight, he had known perfectly well how to bathe
and had amused his captors by requesting a basin each night to wash the dirt
and stinking fear sweat off his skin.
He actually jumped when Skeeter spoke.
"Vicious old harpy," Skeeter said mildly, his demeanor as perfectly calm as
his person was neat and eternally well groomed. "She'll do anything to throw
her competition off form." He chuckled. "You know Marcus here, sit down again-
I would dearly love to see someone scam her."
Marcus sat down and managed to hold his sudden laughter to a mere grin,
although he could not keep it from bubbling in his eyes. "That would be
something to witness. It's interesting, you know, watching the two of you
circle, probe defenses, finally sending darts through chinks in one an other's
armor."
Skeeter just stared at him.
Marcus added, "You both are strong-willed, Skeeter, and generally get
exactly what you want from life, same as Goldie. But I will tell you something
important." In this one particular case, at least, Ianira was not the only
"seer" in his family. The story was there, plain to witness for anyone who
simply bothered to look, and knowing people as he did, the future was not
difficult to predict. He finished his beer in one long swallow, aware that
Skeeter's gaze had never left his face.
"Goldie, ' Marcus said softly, "has declared war upon you, Skeeter, whether
you welcome it or no. She reminds me of the Mediterranean sharks that followed
the slave ship, feeding off those who died. No ... the sharks did only what
they were made to do. Goldie is so far gone in the enjoyment of her evil
deeds, there is no hope of salvaging anything good from her."
He returned Skeeter's unblinking gaze for several moments. Then his friend
spoke, almost coldly as Goldie had. "Meaning you think me worth salvaging. Is
that it, friend?"
Marcus went ice-cold all through. "You are a good man, Skeeter," he said