"Stephen Goldin - The Sword Unswayed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

diagonally across the stage during the fire. You wondered whether there might still be glowing embers
about, and how safe it was to even be in the audience. The perfect ambiance for a play in which no one
was safe._
_An actor entered stage left and walked to center stage, deep in thought and oblivious to the audience.
He wore tights and slippers, but was bare from the waist up. He stood pensively for a moment, until a
dresser entered stage right carrying an oddly padded vest. The dresser handed the vest to the actor and
exited again stage right. The actor slipped on the vest and fastened it down the front. The padding gave
an odd curvature to his back._

_The dresser entered again stage right, this time carrying a brown tunic embroidered with gold and a wig
with long, straight hair. He set the wig momentarily on a charred beam as he helped the actor into the
tunic, then arranged the wig on the actor's head with professional precision. His tasks now complete, the
dresser exited, again stage right._

_The actor watched him depart. As he did so, a transformation came over him. His left shoulder
slouched, his right shoulder raised, and his head tilted slightly to the right. He was now a hunchback._

_Alone again on stage, he turned and saw the audience as though for the first time. He smiled then. Not
the somber smile of an archvillain contemplating his sinister machinations; no, this was the smile of
someone who knows a devilishly funny joke and is about to let you in on it. His tongue was so far in his
cheek it practically came out his ear._

_"Now is the winter of our discontent," he began, "Made glorious summer by this sun of York."_

_Rabinowitz found herself in two places at once: sitting spellbound in the audience as this improbable
impostor outlined the joke he intended to play on all of England, and standing in the wings mouthing the
lines along with him. Yet somehow there was a still, small voice saying clearly inside her mind, "No,
you're the wrong murderous schemer! The War of the Roses is centuries away. Where are my witches?
Where are my secret, black and midnight hags? Clarence, Brakenbury, guards, you're on!"_

Alarms buzzed insistently. The world whirled around her. She sat up as the burned-out theater melded in
surreal counterpoint with her bedroom. The lights rose from darkened to dim, letting her see without
immediately blinding her. A small yellow light was flashing in the wall to her left.

"Alarm: status," she said.

"Potential intruder, front porch. No penetration, but testing door and windows. Should I call police?"

"First the alien at the banquet, now this," she muttered. Then, more loudly, "Not yet. Turn on porch light.
Intercom, sound only: Hello out there. State your business, quickly."

"Debs, please. I must see you now. There's trouble, and I need your help!"

Bian Dinh! "Be right down. Intercom: off." Rabinowitz rolled out of bed and grabbed a robe from her
closet. "I knew this was going to be unpleasant," she muttered. "Why are my instincts always so right?"

***

Bian Dinh sat in the middle of Rabinowitz's living room couch, sipping hot chocolate laced with brandy.
She was still shaking, though the drink was starting to calm her down. Rabinowitz sat beside her, trying to