"Joe Haldeman - Blood Brothers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

a slight advantage over the tanners' vats of rotting urine. He even sorted out the delicate
cucumber fragrance of freshly butchered fish, like a whisper in a jabbering crowd; not many
snouts had such powers of discrimination. As ever, he enjoyed the first few minutes within
the city walls, before the reek stunned even his nose to dullness.
Most of the stalls in the Farmers' Market were shuttered now, but he was able to trade
two coppers for a fresh melon, which he peeled as he walked into the bazaar, the krrf
inconspicuous under his arm.
He haggled for a while with a coppersmith, new to the bazaar, for a brace of lamps to
replace the ones that had been stolen from the Unicorn last night. He would send one of his
urchins around to pick them up. He watched the acrobats for a while, then went to the
various wine merchants for bids on the next week's ordinaries. He ordered a hundredweight
of salt meat, sliced into snacks, to be delivered that night, and checked the guild hall of the
mercenaries to find a hall guard more sober than the one who had allowed the lamps to be
stolen. Then he went down to the Wideway and had an early dinner of raw fish and crab
fritters. Fortified, he entered the Maze.
As the eunuch had said, One-Thumb had nothing to fear from the regular denizens of the
Maze. Desperadoes who would disembowel children for sport (a sport sadly declining since
the introduction of a foolproof herbal abortifacient) tipped their hats respectfully or stayed
out of his way. Still, he was careful. There were always strangers, often hot to prove
themselves or desperate for the price of bread or wine; and although One-Thumb was a
formidable opponent with or without his rapier, he knew he looked rather like an
overweight merchant whose ugliness interfered with his trade.
He also knew evil well, from the inside, which is why he dressed shabbily and displayed
no outward sign of wealth. Not to prevent violence, since he knew the poor were more often
victims than the rich, but to restrict the class of his possible opponents to those who would
kill for coppers. They generally lacked skill.
On the way to the Unicorn, on Serpentine, a man with the conspicuously casual air of a
beginner pickpocket fell in behind him. One-Thumb knew that the alley was coming up and
would be in deep shadow, and it had a hiding-niche a few paces inside. He turned into the
alley and, drawing the dagger from his boot, slipped into the niche and set the krrf between
his feet.
The man did follow, proof enough, and when his steps faltered at the darkness, One-
Thumb spun out of the niche behind him, clamped a strong hand over his mouth and nose,
and methodically slammed the stiletto into his back, time and again, aiming for kidneys.
When the man's knees buckled, One-Thumb let him down slowly, slitting his throat for
silence. He took the money belt and a bag of coin from the still-twitching body, cleaned and
replaced his dagger, picked up the krrf, and resumed his stroll down the Serpentine. There
were a few bright spatters of blood on his houppelande, but no one on that street would be
troubled by it. Sometimes guardsmen came through, but not to harass the good citizens or
criticize their quaint customs.
Two in one day, he thought; it had been a year or more since the last time that happened.
He felt vaguely good about it, though neither man had been much of a challenge. The
cutpurse was a clumsy amateur and the young noble from Ranke a trusting fool (whose
assassination had been commissioned by one of his father's ministers).
He came up the street south of the Vulgar Unicorn's entrance and let himself in the back
door. He glanced at the inventory in the storeroom, noted that it must have been a slow day,
and went through to his office. He locked up the krrf in a strongbox and then poured himself
a small glass of lemony aperitif and sat down at the one-way mirror that allowed him to
watch the bar unseen. For an hour he watched money and drink change hands. The
bartender, who had been the cook aboard a pirate vessel until he'd lost a leg, seemed good