"Jones, Diana Wynne - Chrestomanci 2 - 1980 - The Magicians of Caprona" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

"Shut up!" shouted everyone.
The man panted and grinned and watched with his mouth open Punch attack the
policeman. He might have been the smallest boy there. Tonino looked irritably
sideways at him and decided the man was probably an amiable lunatic. He let out
such bellows of laughter at the smallest jokes, and he was so oddly dressed. He
was wearing a shiny red silk suit with flashing gold buttons and glittering
medals. Instead of the usual tie, he had white cloth folded at his neck, held in
place by a brooch which winked like a teardrop. There were glistening buckles on
his shoes, and golden rosettes at his knees. What with his sweaty face and his
white shiny teeth showing as he laughed, the man glistened all over.
Mr. Punch noticed him too. "Oh what a clever fellow!" he crowed, bouncing about
on his little wooden shelf. "I see gold buttons. Can it be the Pope?"
"Oh no it isn't!" bellowed Mr. Glister, highly delighted.
"Can it be the Duke?" cawed Mr. Punch.
"Oh no it isn't!" roared Mr. Glister, and everyone else.
"Oh yes it is," crowed Mr. Punch.
While everyone was howling "Oh no it isn't!" two worried-looking men pushed
their way through the people to Mr. Glister.
"Your Grace," said one, "the Bishop reached the Cathedral half an hour ago."
"Oh bother!" said Mr. Glister. "Why are you lot always bullying me? Can't I
justЧuntil this ends? I love Punch and Judy."
The two men looked at him reproachfully.
"OhЧvery well," said Mr. Glister. "You two pay the showman. Give everyone here
something." He turned and went bounding away into the Corso, puffing and
panting.
For a moment, Tonino wondered if Mr. Glister was actually the Duke of Caprona.
But the two men made no attempt to pay the showman, or anyone else. They simply
went trotting demurely after Mr. Glister, as if they were afraid of losing him.
From this, Tonino gathered that Mr. Glister was indeed a lunaticЧa rich oneЧand
they were humoring him.
"Mean things!" crowed Mr. Punch, and set about tricking the Hangman into being
hanged instead of him. Tonino watched until Mr. Punch bowed and retired in
triumph into the little painted villa at the back of his stage. Then he turned
away, remembering his unhappiness.
He did not feel like going back to the Casa Montana. He did not feel like doing
anything particularly. He wandered on, the way he had been going, until he found
himself in the Piazza Nuova, up on the hill at the western end of the city. Here
he sat gloomily on the parapet, gazing across the River Voltava at the rich
villas and the Ducal Palace, and at the long arches of the New Bridge, and
wondering if he was going to spend the rest of his life in a fog of stupidity.
The Piazza Nuova had been made at the same time as the New Bridge, about seventy
years ago, to give everyone the grand view of Caprona Tonino was looking at now.
It was breathtaking. But the trouble was, everything Tonino looked at had
something to do with the Casa Montana.
Take the Ducal Palace, whose golden-stone towers cut clear lines into the clean
blue of the sky opposite. Each golden tower swept outwards at the top, so that
the soldiers on the battlements, beneath the snapping red and gold flags, could
not be reached by anyone climbing up from below. Tonino could see the shields
built into the battlements, two a side, one cherry, one leaf-green, showing that
the Montanas and the Petrocchis had added a spell to defend each tower. And the