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

always been a free man, born into a good family, raised by another good man.
Even with the eventual understanding Marcus had reached that no one here could
call him slave, Skeeter was still Marcus' social superior in every way Marcus
had ever heard of.
"Oh, I'm gonna miss that," Skeeter said after a long pull. "Now ... You
were born in Rome, right?"
"Well, no, actually, I was not."
Skeeter blinked. "You weren't?"
"No. I was born in Gallia Comata, in a very small village called Cautes."
He couldn't help the pride that touched his voice. A thousand years and his
little village was still there--changed a great deal, but still standing
beneath the high, sharp mountains of his childhood, beautiful as ever under
their mantles of snow and cloud. The same wild, rushing stream still cut
through the heart of the village, just as it always had, clear and cold enough
to shock a grunt from even the stoutest man.
"Cautes? Where the hell is that?"
Marcus grinned. "I once asked Brian Hendrickson, in the library, about my
village. It is still there, but the name is different, just a little. Gallia
Comata no longer exists at all. My village, called now Cauterets, is in the
place you would know as France, but it is still famous for the sacred warm
springs that cure women who cannot bear children."
Skeeter started to grin, then didn't. "You're serious."
"Yes, why would I not be? I cannot help that I was born in conquered
territory and..."
"About the women, I mean?" Skeeter's expression was priceless: another
scheme was taking shape visibly on his unguarded face.
Marcus laughed. "I do not know, Skeeter. I was only a child when I was
taken away, so I cannot be sure, but all the villagers said it. Roman women
came there from all southern Gaul to bathe in the waters, so they could get a
child."
Skeeter chuckled in turn, his thoughts still visible in his eyes. "They'd
have done better to sleep with their husbands-or somebody's husband, anyway-a
little more often."
"Or drink less lead," Marcus added, proud of what he had learned in his few
years in La-La Land. Rachel Eisenstein, the head physician in the time
terminal, had told Marcus the levels of dissolved lead in his own blood were
dropping, which was the only reason he'd been able to father little Artemisia
and Gelasia.
"Touche." Skeeter lifted his glass and drained half the brew. "Aren't you
going to drink any of that beer?"
Marcus carefully poured a libation to the gods-just a few drops spilled
onto the wooden floor-then tasted his own beer. He'd be scrubbing the floor
later, anyway, so a little worship wouldn't anger his employers. They groused
more about the free drinks Marcus sometimes gave away to those in need than
they did about a little spillage.
"Okay," Skeeter took another swig, "you were born in France, but lived in
Rome most of your life, right?"
"Yes. I was sold as a young boy to a slave trader coming down the Roman
highway from Aqua Tarbellicae." Marcus shivered. "The first thing he did was
change my name. He said mine was not pronounceable."