"Jensen, Jane - Gabriel Knight 02 - The Beast Within" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jensen Jane)

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Prologue
Rittersberg, Bavaria
1750
The jailer's name was Aug. It had once been Au-
gustus, but the boy had none of his mother's preten-
sions, and no one still living knew the longer
appellation that made sense of the shorterЧnot even
the jailer's wife.
Right now Aug wished he'd taken the higher road
his mother'd urged and had ended up an officer in the
army perhaps, or a local magistrate or solicitor. For
that matter, he would gratefully trade places with the
merchants or farmers, the ones sent to destroy the
Beast's family. Even being the executioner would be
better, for his duty would be carried out tomorrow in
the sane light of day and amidst the fear-salving crowd
at the scaffold. He'd rather be anyone and anywhere
other than the village jailer sitting where he was sitting
at this momentЧalone, at night.
Which was at the wooden table outside the dungeon
door. Aug rooted himself to the spot by sheer force
of will, not because he was brave (although he'd seen
battle with the French and was brave enough) but
because it was his job, and to refuse would mean not
only the loss of it but loss of face in the village as
well. He told himself that the door was made of mas-
sive oak planks chosen expressly for the purpose of
confinement, and that the iron bar that lay across it
was the finest chastity belt ever given that seductress,
Escape. But both the bar and the door had been in-
vented for the worst that a man could do. Who knew
what the Beast was capable of?
Helllllpppppppppppppppppppppmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-
eeeeeeeeeeeeeepleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseinGooooooo-
oooooooooooodsnaaaaaaaaaaaaame!
The pleas went far beyond shrieks of pain. He knew
a man's scream well enough. This was not a human
body in pain; it was a soul's anguish. It was the sound
of the act of damnation.
Aug clutched the rough table in front of him as
desperately as he would grip an assailant's neck. His
tanned and weathered face was the shade of palest
coffee, like the cast of fresh cream in a brown wooden
bucket. His eyes were fixed on the dungeon door. His
brain stopped reassuring itself about locks and hinges
and began reciting the rosary.