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

truding from the back of his robe pointed stiffly upward.
The sergeant noted the gold and scarlet velvet of
the robe and its foppish sleeves. Inwardly he sneered.
He further noted the black wand, man-high, ornamented
like a king's scepter. "Not with that," he said.
Damiano smiled crookedly at the soldier's distrust.
"Oh, yes, with this especially. Pardo will want to see
this." He spoke with great confidence, as though he,
and not the sergeant, had just left the general's pres-
ence. Glowering but unsure, the sergeant let him pass.
"Aren't you coming along?" inquired Damiano,
turning in some surprise halfway down the stair. The
sergeant had stood his place at the open doorway, his
ruddy bare knees now at Damiano's eye level. "тАФTo
see that I don't play truant by darting over the city wall
or turning into a hawk and escaping into the air?"
"I am to guard the house," answered the soldier
stolidly.
Damiano stared for a moment, his mind buzzing
with surmises, then he continued down the stairs.
Under the arch of the stairway, beside the empty
stables, stood another of Pardo's soldiery: a tall man
with a scar running the length of one leg. He too
watched Damiano pass and kept his place.
The street was not so bare as it had appeared
earlier. It was scattered with swart-garbed soldiers,
who stood out against the dust and stucco like black
pepper on boiled frumenty. Damiano had never been
able to abide boiled frumenty. No more did he like to
see the streets of Partestrada dead like this. He was
quite fond of his city.
Damiano could feel, using a little witch-senseтАФwhich
was nothing like sight or sound, but rather like the
touch of a feather against the face or, better, against the
back of the palateтАФthat there was no one at home in
any of the square plaster houses around him. He
gripped his staff tighter and strode forth, immediately
stumbling over Macchiata.
"Get out of there," he grumbled, lifting his skirts
and giving the dog a shove with his foot. "Walk before,
behind or beside, but not under."
Macchiata laid back her ears, thin, white, and
folded like writing paper. "You put me there, and I
couldn't see."
Damiano started forward again, hoping no one on
the street had noticed. "That was to keep you away
from the soldier. He might have spitted at you in a
moment, and there's nothing I could have done about
it. Then where would you be?"
The dog did not respond. She did not know the