"Harry Harrison - Hammer Cross 1 - The Hammer and the Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

"Longships?"
"No, master, knorrs."
Godwin hurled the mug over his shoulder, seized the slave's thin arm in an
iron grasp,
and slashed him viciously across the face, forehand, backhand, with a sodden
leather
gauntlet. Merla gasped and ducked but did not dare to try to shield himself.
"Talk English, you whore's get. And talk sense."
"A knorr, master. It's a merchant ship. Deep-bellied, for cargo." He
hesitated, afraid to
show further knowledge, afraid to conceal it. "I can recognize 'un by... by
the shape of the
prow. They must be Vikings, master. We don't use 'em."
Godwin stared out to sea again, anger fading, replaced by a cold, hard feeling
at the
base of his stomach. Doubt. Dread.
"Listen, Merla, to me," he whispered. "Be very sure. If those are Vikings I
must call
out the entire coast-watch, every man from here to Bridlington. They are only
churls and
slaves, when all is said and done. No harm if they are dragged from their
greasy wives.
"But I must do something else. As soon as the watch is called I must also send
riders
in to the minister at Beverley, to the monks of good St. JohnтАФyour masters,
remember?"
He paused to note the terror and the old memories in Merla's eyes. "And they
will call out the mounted levy, the thanes of Ella. No good keeping them
here, where the pirates could feint at Flamborough and then be twenty miles
off round
Spurn Head before they could get their horses out of the marsh. So they stay
back, so they
can ride in any direction once the threat is seen. But if I call them out, and
they ride over
here in the wind and the rain on a fool's errand... And especially if some
Viking sneaks in
through the Humber while their backs are turned...
"Well, it would be bad for me, Merla." His voice sharpened and he lifted the
underfed
slave off the ground. "But by almighty God in heaven I'll see you regret it
till the last day
you live. And after the thrashing you get that may not be long.
"But, Merla, if those are Viking ships out there and you let me not report
themтАФI'll
hand you back to the black monks and say I could do nothing with you.
"Now, what do you say? Viking ships, or no?"
The slave stared out again to sea, his face working. He would have been wiser,
he
thought, to say nothing. What was it to him if the Vikings sacked Flamborough,
or