"Robert E. Howard - Conan - Rogues In The House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

ROGUES IN THE HOUSE

by

Robert E. Howard

At a court festival, Nabonidus, the Red Priest, who was the real ruler of
the city, touched Murilo, the young aristocrat, courteously on the arm. Murilo
turned to meet the priest's enigmatic gaze, and to wonder at the hidden
meaning therein. No words passed between them, but Nabonidus bowed and
handed Murilo a small gold cask. The young nobleman, knowing that
Nabonidus did nothing without reason, excused himself at the first
opportunity and returned hastily to his chamber. There he opened the cask
and found within a human ear, which he recognized by a peculiar scar upon
it. He broke into a profuse sweat and was no longer in doubt about the
meaning in the Red Priest's glance.

But Murilo, for all his scented black curls and foppish apparel was no
weakling to bend his neck to the knife without a struggle. He did not know
whether Nabonidus was merely playing with him or giving him a chance to
go into voluntary exile, but the fact that he was still alive and at liberty
proved that he was to be given at least a few hours, probably for meditation.
However, he needed no meditation for decision; what he needed was a tool.
And Fate furnished that tool, working among the dives and brothels of the
squalid quarters even while the young nobleman shivered and pondered in
the part of the city occupied by the purple-towered marble and ivory palaces
of the aristocracy.

There was a priest of Anu whose temple, rising at the fringe of the slum
district, was the scene of more than devotions. The priest was fat and full-
fed, and he was at once a fence for stolen articles and a spy for the police.
He worked a thriving trade both ways, because the district on which he
bordered was the Maze, a tangle of muddy, winding alleys and sordid dens,
frequented by the bolder thieves in the kingdom. Daring above all were a
Gunderman deserter from the mercenaries and a barbaric Cimmerian.
Because of the priest of Anu, the Gunderman was taken and hanged in the
market square. But the Cimmerian fled, and learning in devious ways of the
priest's treachery, he entered the temple of Anu by night and cut off the
priest's head. There followed a great turmoil in the city, but the search for
the killer proved fruitless until a woman betrayed him to the authorities and
led a captain of the guard and his squad to the hidden chamber where the
barbarian lay drunk.

Waking to stupefied but ferocious life when they siezed him, he
disemboweled the captain, burst through his assailants, and would have
escaped but for the liquor that still clouded his senses. Bewildered and half
blinded, he missed the open door in his headlong flight and dashed his head
against the stone wall so terrifically that he knocked himself senseless. When
he came to, he was in the strongest dungeon in the city, shackled to the wall
with chains not even his barbaric thews could break.