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

the world could accomplish the task he had set, this Cimmerian could. With a
few repeated instructions he left the prison, first directing Athicus to take a
platter of beef and ale in to the prisoner. He knew he could trust the guard,
not only because of the money he had paid, but also because of certain
information he possessed regarding the man.

When he returned to his chamber, Murilo was in full control of his fears.
Nabonidus would strike through the king -- of that he was certain. And since
the royal guardsmen were not knocking at his door, it was certain that the
priest had said nothing to the king, so far. Tomorrow he would speak,
beyond a doubt -- if he lived to see tomorrow.
 Murilo believed the Cimmerian would keep faith with him. Whether the
man would be able to carry out his purpose remained to be seen. Men had
attempted to assassinate the Red Priest before, and they had died in hideous
and nameless ways. But they had been products of the cities of men, lacking
the wolfish instincts of the barbarian. The instant that Murilo, turning the
gold cask with its severed ear in his hands, had learned through his secret
channels that the Cimmerian had been captured, he had seen a solution of
his problem.

In his chamber again, he drank a toast to the man, whose name was
Conan, and to his success that night. And while he was drinking, one of his
spies brought him the news that Athicus had been arrested and thrown into
prison. The Cimmerian had not escaped.

Murilo felt his blood turn to ice again. He could see in this twist of fate
only the sinister hand of Nabonidus, and an eery obsession began to grow on
him that the Red Priest was more than human -- a sorcerer who read the
minds of his victims and pulled strings on which they danced like puppets.
With despair came desperation. Girding a sword beneath his black cloak, he
left his house by a hidden way and hurried through the deserted streets. It
was just at midnight when he came to the house of Nabonidus, looming
blackly among the walled gardens that separated it from the surrounding
estates.

The wall was high but not impossible to negotiate. Nabonidus did not put
his trust in mere barriers of stone. It was what was inside the wall that was
to be feared. What these things were Murilo did not know precisely. He knew
there was at least a huge savage dog that roamed the gardens and had on
occasion torn an intruder to pieces as a hound rends a rabbit. What else
there might be he did not care to conjecture. Men who had been allowed to
enter the house on brief, legitimate business, reported that Nabonidus dwelt
among rich furnishings, yet simply, attended by a surprisingly small number
of servants. Indeed, they mentioned only one as having been visible -- a tall,
silent man called Joka. Some one else, presumably a slave, had been heard
moving about in the recesses of the house, but this person no one had ever
seen. The greatest mystery of the mysterious house was Nabonidus himself,
whose power of intrigue and grasp on international politics had made him
the strongest man in the kingdom. People, chancellor and king moved
puppetlike on the strings he worked.