"Garry Kilworth - The Sculptor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kilworth Garry)

river and drowned when the overcrowded rafts were thrown by the rapids;
others perished of starvation when they arrived at the camps; thousands
went down with the plague and never raised their heads above the dust
again.
And still the Tower grew.

"What do you think of da Vinci?" asked Romola on the third night they were
together.
"He's a genius," said NiccolЄ without hesitation. "He is the greatest
architect and builder the world has ever known."
"Does his genius come from God?"
She peered at him through the firelight.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean does God give him instruction?"
"That sounds close to blasphemy," he said, staring hard. "You're
suggesting that God, not the High Priest, should take credit for the
Tower. It is da Vinci's work, not the Lord's."
He drew away from her then, away from the fire, despite his fear of the
night snakes amongst the darkness of the rocks.
She continued to talk.
"I used to be one of the Holy Guardians - until I was thrown out on my
ear. . ."
He looked at her, then behind him at the Tower, then back to her again.
"Ah," he said, "you didn't come from the refugee camp? You came from the
Tower itself?"
"I . . . I didn't know what else to do, when we were told to leave, I
thought about looking for my parents' former home, thinking it was a long
way from the Tower and something of it might have survived."
"Why were you asked to leave?"
"New guards were recruited, from distant places. The old Holy Guardians
have been disbanded. We are no longer permitted to remain near the tower.
Most of my friends have gone down to the sea, to try to get work on the
ships, guarding against pirates. Fighting is all we know. I intend to ask
the High Priest if some of his - his closer Companions at Arms can return
to our former posts. We were his Chosen, after all."
NiccolЄ smiled.
"You mean he doesn't call you to his bed any more?"
She lifted her head and shook it.
"No, that's a privilege reserved for the Holy Guardians."
"I see. So the fact that you, and most of your companions, had reached the
age of thirty or thereabouts, had nothing to do with you being asked to
leave? The new men and women, they're not young, handsome or pretty of
course?"
She stared at NiccolЄ.
"He recruited a new army for very logical reasons. They now consist of
many small groups of men and women from different regions, different
tribes."
"Now why did da Vinci do that?" asked NiccolЄ, softly.
"It's said that he's afraid of plots being formed against him, even
amongst his trusted Holy Guardians. The separate new groups do not speak