"Ursula K. LeGuin - The Ekumen - Old Music and the Slave Women" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

entirely at the mercy of those who feared and hated him. The aegis of the Ekumen had sheltered him. What a fool, to lea
the Embassy, where at least he'd been harmless, and let himself be got hold of by these desperate defenders of a lost ca
who might do a good deal of harm not only to but with him. How much resistance, how much endurance, was he capab
Fortunately they couldn't torture any information about Liberation plans from him, since he didn't know a damned thing
what his friends were doing. But still, what a fool.
Back in the car, sandwiched in the seat with nothing to see but the young men's scowls and the oga's watchful
nonexpression, he shut his eyes again. The highway was smooth here. Rocked in speed and silence, he slipped into a
postadrenaline doze.
When he came fully awake the sky was gold, two of the little moons glittering above a cloudless sunset. They were j
along on a side road, a driveway that wound past fields, orchards, plantations of trees and building-cane, a huge field-w
compound, more fields, another compound. They stopped at a checkpoint guarded by a single armed man, were check
briefly and waved through. The road went through an immense, open, rolling park. Its familiarity troubled him. Lacewor
trees against the sky, the swing of the road among groves and glades. He knew the river was over that long hill.
"This is Yaramera," he said aloud.
None of the men spoke.
Years ago, decades ago, when he'd been on Werel only a year or so, they'd invited a party from the Embassy down
Yaramera, the greatest estate in Voe Deo. The Jewel of the East. The model of efficient slavery. Thousands of assets
working the fields, mills, factories of the estate, living in enormous compounds, walled towns. Everything clean, orderly,
industrious, peaceful. And the house on the hill above the river, a palace, three hundred rooms, priceless furnishings,
paintings, sculptures, musical instrumentsтАФhe remembered a private concert hall with walls of gold-backed glass mosai
Tualite shrine-room that was one huge flower carved of scented wood.
They were driving up to that house now. The car turned. He caught only a glimpse, jagged black spars against the s
The two young men were allowed to handle him again, haul him out of the car, twist his arm, push and shove him up
steps. Trying not to resist, not to feel what they were doing to him, he kept looking about him. The center and the south
of the immense house were roofless, ruinous. Through the black outline of a window shone the blank clear yellow of the
Even here in the heartland of the Law, the slaves had risen. Three years ago, now, in that first terrible summer when
thousands of houses had burned, compounds, towns, cities. Four million dead. He had not known the Uprising had reac
even to Yaramera. No news came up the river. What toll among the Jewel's slaves for that night of burning? Had the ow
been slaughtered, or had they survived to deal out punishment? No news came up the river.
All this went through his mind with unnatural rapidity and clarity as they crowded him up the shallow steps towards t
north wing of the house, guarding him with drawn guns as if they thought a man of sixty-two with severe leg cramps from
sitting motionless for hours was going to break and run for it, here, three hundred kilos inside their own territory. He tho
fast and noticed everything.
This part of the house, joined to the central house by a long arcade, had not burned down. The walls still bore up th
roof, but he saw as they came into the front hall that they were bare stone, their carved paneling burnt away. Dirty
sheetflooring replaced parquet or covered painted tile. There was no furniture at all. In its ruin and dirt the high hall was
beautiful, bare, full of clear evening light. Both veots had left his group and were reporting to some men in the doorway o
what had been a reception room. He felt the veots as safeguard and hoped they would come back, but they did not. On
the young men kept his arm twisted up his back. A heavyset man came towards him, staring at him.
"You're the alien called Old Music?"
"I am Hainish, and use that name here."
"Mr. Old Music, you're to understand that by leaving your embassy in violation of the protection agreement between
ambassador and the Government of Voe Deo, you've forfeited diplomatic immunity. You may be held in custody,
interrogated, and duly punished for any infractions of civil law or crimes of collusion with insurgents and enemies of the S
you're found to have committed."
"I understood that this is your statement of my position," Esdan said. "But you should know, sir, that the Ambassado
the Stabiles of the Ekumen of the Worlds consider me protected both by diplomatic immunity and the laws of the Ekum
No harm trying, but his wordy lies weren't listened to. Having recited his litany, the man turned away, and the young
grabbed Esdan again. He was hustled through doorways and corridors that he was now in too much pain to see, down
stairs, across a wide, cobbled courtyard, and into a room where, with a final agonising jerk on his arm and his feet knoc