"Eric Van Lustbader - Sunset Warrior 4 - Beneath an Opal Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lustbader Eric van)

just inside the closed door, perfectly still, listening
intently, absorbing the

BENEATH AN OPAL MOON 5

background drift of sounds, setting it in his mind so
that, even if he is otherwise occupied, he will
automatically hear any deviation.
 Then he crosses over the mean floorboards,
throws his heavy saddlebags onto the high down bed
with its pale green spread, moving ilTunediately to
the window, drawing the curtains. When they stop
moving, he pulls one side carefully back in the crook
of one forefinger, gazing out onto a heavily
shadowed alley perpendicular to Green Dolphin
Street. He is, he knows, within the heart of the city,
far from the long wharves of the Sha'angh'sei delta.
Still, if he strains, he can hear the kubaru's plaintive
hypnotic work songs filtering through the hubbub.
Peering sideways, he can just make out a slender
section of the far side of Green Dolphin Street. A
seller of herbed pork and veal is closing his shop
and, immediately adjacent, the lights are
extinguished in a dusty carpet shop as three
brothers, pear-shaped and identical down to their
embroidered saffron robes, shutter the windows.
They are rich, the carpet merchants, thinks the
scarred man, letting the curtains fall back into place.
The more prosperous they become, the heavier they
seem to weigh, as if they have been magically
transformed into living embodiments of the taels of
silver which they hoard.

The scarred man quits the far side of the room
and, satisfied that the curtains will hold in the light,
fires an oil lamp atop the scarred bedside table. One
corner is charred as if some former occupant had
clumsily overturned the lamp. He reaches into the
recesses of his saddlebags, withdraws the newly
bought flagon of wine, takes a long drink.

He washes at the nightstand until the water is
black with grime and presently he hears light
footfalls on the stairs. His head comes up and his
right hand grips the hilt of his curving sword. He
steps soundlessly to the wall adjacent the door and
waits, scarcely breathing.

A knock on the door.