"Robert E. Howard - Conan - The Tower Of Elephant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

THE TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT

by

Robert E. Howard

Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the
East held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they
liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with
stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved
streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisters
staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where rose the shrill
laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings. Torchlight
licked luridly from broken windows and widethrown doors, and out of those
doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking jacks
and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a
blow in the face.

In one of those dens merriment thundered to the low smoke-stained roof, where
rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters -- furtive cutpurses,
leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravos with their
wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery. Native rogues were the
dominant element -- dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their
girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen
outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade,
taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his gaunt frame -- for men
wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his
hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold-eyed Brythunian wench,
sitting on the knee of a tawdry-haired Gunderman -- a wandering mercenary
soldier, a deserter from some defeated army. And the fat gross rogue whose
bawdy jests were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper
come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born
with more knowledge of the art than he could ever attain. This man halted in
his description of an intended victim's charms and thrust his muzzle into a
huge tankard of frothing ale. Then blowing the foam from his fat lips, he
said, "By Bel, god of all thieves, I'll show them how to steal wenches; I'll
have her over the Zamorian border before dawn, and there'll be a caravan
waiting to receive her. Three hundred pieces of silver, a count of Ophir
promised me for a sleek young Brythunian of the better class. It took me
weeks, wandering among the border cities as a beggar, to find one I knew would
suit. And she is a pretty baggage!

He blew a slobbery kiss in the air.

"I know lords in Shem who would trade the secret of the Elephant Tower for
her," he said, returning to his ale.

A touch on his tunic sleeve made him turn his head, sclowling at the
interruption. He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him. This
person was as much out of place in that den as a grey wolf among mangy rats of