"Up the Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

The commander's face resembled an adolescent cheese. His jowls shuddered as much as his voice when he inquired so very delicately of his guest, "What? Never?"
When Junius went to translate this into Geatish, the hero seized him by the throat and shook him until his kneecaps rattled. He pitched the Roman javelin-fashion at the open doorway of the commander's house. Unfortunately, he missed his aim by a handspan. Junius came up face-first against a doorpost and knocked one of the severed heads out of its niche. The commander's woman, a hutproud lady, fussed loudly as she dusted it off and tucked it back where it belonged.
Junius received no such attentions.
Ursus glowered at the fallen foe.
"Far though my fate has flung roe,
Weary the whale-road wandering,
Still shall I no stupidity stomach,
Butt and baited of boobies!"
All this he spat at his retired translator. He used a sadly corrupt version of Latin, admixed higgledy-piggledy with a sprinkling of other tongues. Like most bastards, it had its charm, and was able to penetrate where purebreds could not follow. It took some concentration, but every man of the Ninth who heard Ursus speak so, understood him.
Caius took a tentative step towards his unexpected champion. "You haven't half got a bad accent, mate. For a bloody foreigner, I mean. Pick up the tongue from a trader, then?"
Ursus' eyes narrowed, making them nigh invisible. He motioned for Caius to approach, and when the little man complied, he grabbed him and hoisted him onto tip-toe by a knot of tunic.
"Hear me, 0 halfling halfblood,
Lees of the legion's long lingering
Here hard by Hadrian's human-reared hillock!
Your lowly life I love not.
Murder you might I meetly,
Yet you are young and useful.
Wise is the woman-born warrior
Dragons who dauntless dares;
Smarter the soul who sword-smites serpents
Carefully, in company of comrades."
Caius was still puzzling this out when Marcus Septimus inched up behind him and whispered, "I think he wants a sword-bearer or something to stand by while he does in the dragon for us."
"Want my opinion," Caius growled out of the comer of his mouth, "the bugger's just as scared as the rest of us. Sword-bearer, my arse! What he wants is bait!"
"We could still crucify you," Marcus suggested.
Caius got his hands up and delicately disengaged the barbarian's hold on his tunic. Once there was solid earth under his feet again, he said, "All right, Ursus. You've got me over the soddin' barrel. I'll go."
Everyone left in the hut smiled, including Junius, who had just rejoined the sentient.
Ursus clapped the little legionary on the shoulder and declaimed: "Victory velcomes the valiant!"
Marcus raised one carefully-plucked brow and clucked. " 'Velcomes?' Hmph. If they're going to come over here and take our coin, they might at least learn to speak our language properly!"
"Silly Geat," Junius agreed, rubbing his head.
Ursus was neither deaf nor amused, and his smattering of Latin was enough to parse personal remarks. He gathered up the two critics as lesser men might pick strawberries. Marcus cast an imploring glance at the commander, who was suddenly consumed by a passion to get to know his toenails better.
"Sagas they sing of swordsmen," Ursus informed them. "Hymn they the homicidal. Geats, though for glory greedy, Shame think it not to share. Wily, the Worm awaits us. Guides will I guard right gladly! And, should the shambler slay you, Sorrow shall I sincerely."
Caius leered at the two wriggling captives. "In other words, gents, we've all been bloody drafted."
"Oh, I hate this, hate this, hate this," Marcus whined as they trudged along Hadrian's Wall, fruitlessly trying to keep pace with Ursus.
"Put a caliga in it, you miserable cow! It's not like he'd tapped you to be his weapons bearer." Caius gave Marcus an encouraging jab with the bundle of spears that had been wished on him by his new boss. "All you've got to do is lead him to the fen where the monster's skulking and take off once the fun starts. Shouldn't be too hard for you."
"We're all going to die," Marcus moaned. "The dragon will be all stirred up, and it will slay that great brute before you can say hie ibat Simois, and then it will come after us. I can't outrun a dragon! Not in these shoes."
At the head of the line where he marched beside Ursus, a spare eagle standard jouncing along on his shoulder, Junius overheard and gave them a scornful backwards glance. He said something that Caius did not quite catch, but which caused Marcus to make an obscene gesture.
"Soddin' ears going on me," Caius complained. "What'd he say, then?"
"That_" Marcus pursed his ungenerous mouth "_was Greek"
"Greek to me, all right," Caius agreed. "Junie always was a bloody show-off."
"He said we were both slackers and cowards, and when we get back and he tells the Commander how badly we've disgraced the Glorious Ninth in front of the hired help, we'll both be crucified."
"Not that again." Caius shifted the spears. "I'm fucking sick and tired of Junie and his thrice-damned crucifixions. Mithra, it's like a bally religion with him. What's he need to get off, then? A handful of sesterce spikes and a mallet?"
"He also said that he was going to warn Arctos to keep a weather eye on us so we don't bolt."
Caius flung down his bundle, exasperated. 'Wow who's been wished on us for this little deathmarch, eh? Bad enough we're to split two men's rations four ways_sod the commander for a stone-arsed miser_but who's this fifth wheel coming to join us?"
The clatter of falling spears made the rest of the party draw up short. Marcus was totally bewildered. "What fifth wheel?"
"This Arctos bastard who'll be baby-minding us, that's who!" Caius shouted.
Junius regarded the angry little man with disdain. "I will thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when speaking of our pro tempore commander, Caius Lucius Piso." He then turned to the barbarian and added, "Do not kill him yet, 0 august Ursus. We still need him to carry the spears."
"Arctos is Ursus, Cai, old boy," Marcus whispered. "Greek, Latin, same meaning, same name. So sorry if I confused you. The drawbacks of a really good classical education." He tittered behind his hand.
"Sod off," Caius growled, gathering up the armory.
It was some three days later that the little group finally stepped off on the northern side of the Wall and reached their goal. Gray and brown and thoroughly uninviting, the fen stretched out before them. Mist lay thick upon the quaking earth. A few scraggly bushes, their branches stripped of foliage, clung to the banks of the grim tam like the clutching hands of drowning men going under for the last time.
"_and the best freshwater fishing for miles about." Caius sighed as he viewed the haunt of their watery Nemesis. "If the commander wasn't half such a great glutton, we could leave the fish to the dragon and eat good boiled mutton like honest folk. But no. Off he goes, filling our ears with endless, colicky speeches about the honor of the Ninth and all that Miles Gloriosus codswallop, when the truth is that he just fancies a sliver of stuffed pike now and again. So in he brings this hero fella, and now our lives aren't worth a tench's fart."