"R. A. MacAvoy - Damiano" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

 Chapter 1
A string buzzed against his fingernail; the finger itself
slipped, and the beat was lost. Damiano muttered
something that was a bit profane.
"The problem isn't in your hand at all. It's here,"
said Damiano's teacher, and he laid his ivory hand on
the young man's right shoulder. Damiano turned his
head in surprise, his coarse black ringlets trailing over
the fair skin of that hand. He shifted within his winter
robe, which was colored like a tarnished brass coin and
heavy as coins. The color suited Damiano, whose com-
plexion was rather more warm than fair.
"My shoulder is tight?" Damiano asked, knowing
the answer already. He sighed and let his arm relax.
His fingers slid limply across the yew-wood face of the
liuto that lay propped on his right thigh. The sleeve of
the robe, much longer than his arm and banded in
scarlet, toppled over his wrist. He flipped the cloth up
with a practiced, unconscious movement that also man-
aged to toss his tangle of hair back from his face.
Damiano's hand, arm, and shoulder were slim and
loosely jointed, as was the rest of him.
"Again?" he continued. "I thought I had overcome
that tightness months ago." His eyes and eyelashes
were as soft and black as the woolen mourning cloth
that half the women of the town wore, and his eyes
grew even blacker in his discouragement. He sighed
once more.
Raphael's grip on the youth tightened. He shook
him gently, laughing, and drew Damiano against him.
"You did. And you will overcome it again and again.
As many times as it crops up. As long as you play the
instrument. As long as you wear flesh."
Damiano glanced up. "As long as I . . . Well, in that
case may I fight my problem a good hundred years! Is
that why you never make mistakes, Seraph? No flesh?"
His toothy smile apologized for the witticism even as
he spoke it. Without waiting for an answer, he dropped
his eyes to the liuto and began to play, first the treble
line of the dance, then the bass line, then both together.
Raphael listened, his eyes quiet, blue as lapis. His
hand still lay on Damiano's shoulder, encouraging him.
Raphael's great glistening wings twitched slightly with
the beat of the music. They caught the cloudy daylight
and sent pearly glints against the tiles of the wall.
Damiano played again, this time with authority,
and smoothly passed the place where he had to change
the meterтАФtwo strokes, very fast, plucked by the mid-
dle finger. When he was done, he looked up, his face
flushed with success, his lower lip red because he'd