"Robert E. Howard - Conan - A Witch Shall be Born" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

"Call me Taramis," answered Salome. "We must become accustomed to it."
"What have you done?" cried Taramis. "What have you done?"
"I have gone to the gates and ordered the soldiers to open them," answered Salome. "They were
astounded, but they obeyed. That is the Falcon's army you hear, marching into the city."
"You devil!" cried Taramis. "You have betrayed my people, in my guise! You have made me seem
a traitor! Oh, I shall go to them--"
With a cruel laugh Salome caught her wrist and jerked her back. The magnificent suppleness of
the queen was helpless against the vindictive strength that steeled Salome's slender limbs.
"You know how to reach the dungeons from the palace, Constantius?" said the witch-girl.
"Good. Take this spitfire and lock her into the strongest cell. The jailers are all sound in
drugged sleep. I saw to that. Send a man to cut their throats before they can awaken. None must
ever know what has occurred tonight. Thenceforward I am Taramis, and Taramis is a nameless
prisoner in an unknown dungeon."
Constantius smiled with a glint of strong white teeth under his thin mustache.
"Very good; but you would not deny me a little - ah -amusement first?"
"Not I! Tame the scornful hussy as you will." With a wicked laugh Salome flung her sister
into the Kothian's arms, and turned away through the door that opened into the outer corridor.
Fright widened Taramis's lovely eyes, her supple figure rigid and straining against
Constantius's embrace. She forgot the men marching in the streets, forgot the outrage to her
queenship, in the face of the menace to her womanhood. She forgot all sensations but terror and
shame as she faced the complete cynicism of Constantius's burning, mocking eyes, felt his hard
arms crushing her writhing body.
Salome, hurrying along the corridor outside, smiled spitefully as a scream of despair and
agony rang shuddering through the palace.

2 THE TREE OF DEATH
The young soldier's hose and shirt were smeared with dried blood, wet with sweat and gray
with dust. Blood oozed from the deep gash in his thigh, from the cuts on his breast and shoulder.
Perspiration glistened on his livid face and his fingers were knotted in the cover of the divan on
which he lay. Yet his words reflected mental suffering that outweighed physical pain.
"She must be mad!" he repeated again and again, like one still stunned by some monstrous and
incredible happening. "It's like a nightmare! Taramis, whom all Khauran loves, betraying her
people to that devil from Koth! Oh, Ishtar, why was I not slain? Better die than live to see our
queen turn traitor and harlot!"
"Lie still, Valerius," begged the girl who was washing and bandaging his wounds with
trembling hands. "Oh, please lie still, darling! You will make your wounds worse. I dared not
summon a leech--"
"No," muttered the wounded youth. "Constantius's blue-bearded devils will be searching the
quarters for wounded Khaurani; they'll hang every man who Jias wounds to show he fought against
them. Oh, Taramis, how could you betray the people who worshipped you?" In his fierce agony he
writhed, weeping in rage and shame, and the terrified girl caught him in her arms, straining his
tossing head against her bosom, imploring him to be quiet.
"Better death than the black shame that has come upon Khauran this day," he groaned. "Did you
see it, Ivga?"
"No, Valerius." Her soft, nimble fingers were again at work, gently cleansing and closing the
gaping edges of his raw wounds. "I was awakened by the noise of fighting in the streets -I looked
out a casement and saw the Shemites cutting down people; then presently I heard you calling me
faintly from the alley door."
"I had reached the limits of my strength," he muttered. "I fell in the alley and could not
rise. I knew they'd find me soon if I lay there - I killed three of the blue-bearded beasts, by