"Confluence - 03 - Shrine Of Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

as he thought he was. He had been too long amongst river pirates and the simple fisherfolk, and had lost his edge. He suggested almost straightaway that Pandaras leave Tibor with him and take the pirogue and the motor, and plenty of supplies too, but Pandaras said that he wanted only the pirogue, although he would take the motor if Ayulf had no need for it. In the end, it cost Pandaras half Yama's store of iron coins as well as the husks of the burnt-out machines. He had shown these to Ayulf early on and knew, by the widening of the man's yellow eyes, that the trader instantly coveted them.
Ayulf broke open another bottle of arak to celebrate the deal, and although Pandaras drank only enough to be polite, it quickly went to his head. "That's it," Ayulf said encouragingly. "Drink. Be happy. We've both done well with this deal. Let your slave here drink, too. Aren't we all friends?"
"I do not drink alcohol," Tibor said. "It is a poison to my people."
"We wouldn't want to poison you," Ayulf said. "Not you. You're worth a lot to your master." He said to Pandaras, "You can really fix that?"
"I'm going to do my best," Pandaras said, and opened up the motor's combustion chamber and began to remove and clean the feeder valves and the rotary spark. The crow perched close by, cocking its head this way and that, fascinated by the bright bits of metal which emerged from their coatings of mud. Ayulf watched sidelong, and said that Pandaras seemed to know a little about motors.
"One of my uncles on my stepfather's side had a trade in them. This was in Ys, where such things are forbidden, so it was on the black side of the market. Others think that our bloodline is famous only for songs and stories, and see our hands and think that we cannot do good work with them. But while our fingers are crooked, they are also strong, and we are very patient when we need to be. You might think this motor worthless, but when I'm done it will be better than new. You are very generous, Ayulf,
and I thank you a million times over. Here, more of this rotgut, eh? We will drink to my success."
"You stay here a few days," Ayulf said. "You and your slave."
"He isn't my slave."
"He has to be someone's, and he came with you. Maybe we become partners, eh? Make much money. There is much that needs fixing here. I hear the war goes badly, which means it goes well for you and me, eh? More and more in
the regular army run away from it, have to sell stuff cheap to buy what they need dear, and caterans are always hungry for the best weapons, no matter what side they are on. "
"I have to find my master," Pandaras said. Tibor said, "And the ship."
Ayulf poured Pandaras's shot glass brimful, drank from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It left you behind, eh? Maybe after an argument or a delicate kind of disagreement? I sometimes find those who have fallen out violently with their shipmates, if the caymans and fishes haven't found them first."
"There was certainly a fight," Pandaras said, glaring at Tibor.
"And you lost and were left to rot on some island? I know how that is. Are you sure they want you back? More likely you ran away, eh? They wouldn't leave a valuable slave behind with you. Yes, you took him and ran away, I would guess. No, it's all right, I won't tell. Listen, why go downriver? I have all you want here. Food and drink and women. Well, the women are animals, of course, but they know how to please a man in the warm trade."
Ayulf grabbed at the nearest of the women, but she pushed him away with a loud laugh and turned back to frying shrimp in a big blackened cast iron pan.
"Always cooking," Ayulf said. He started at the woman and made a humming noise in the back of his throat. "Why now, eh? Why so late? You all eat too much, you and your brats. I should throw a few of you







to the caymans, eh? Which ones first?" He stuck his long middle finger (its nail had been filed to a sharp point, and was painted red) at the nearest woman and made a noise like a pistol shot. She giggled and put her hands over her face. Her fingers were webbed, and spread very wide, like a fan. They were tipped with little black claws.
"Someone is coming," the oldest woman said, from the far corner of the shanty. She was very fat, overflowing the stool on which she perched. She was working at a bit of wood with a tiny knife. Her skin was as green as moldy cheese. She said, "They bring hides to trade, man. They will make you rich."
"They share their thoughts," Ayulf told Pandaras. "They are not like us, who keep our thoughts sealed in our skulls. Everything is shared with them, like air or water. Kill any one of them, and it makes no difference."
Pandaras nodded. He was having trouble focusing on the spring, ball-bearing and three bits of metal that should fit together to make one of the feeder valves. There seemed to be too many of them, and his fingers too clumsy. He was drunk, and he had not meant to become drunk. But Ayulf was drunk too, and Pandaras had his poniard and the arbalest, and, at a pinch, Tibor (although he was not sure that Tibor, for all his size and strength, would be any good in a fight). And fisherfolk were coming. The trader would not try anything in front of them.
"You like to think we are all a single mind," the old woman in the corner told Ayulf, "but you know it is not true. It is just that we think alike, that's all. Hush! They are here. "
There were whistles from below, a muffled splash. The crow stirred and hopped to the rail of the veranda, finding its balance with a rustling stir of wings. It cried out hoarsely. Ayulf stumbled to the rail, pushed the bird out of the way, and peered down into the darkness.
Voices floated up. The trader cursed and threw down the half-empty bottle of arak he had been clutching. It shattered on one of the banyan's branches. "Too fucking
late! You understand? Understand too late? Come back tomorrow! "
More voices. The trader cursed again, clambered over the rail, and swarmed down the banyan. Pandaras stood (the cluttered, shadowy shanty seemed to revolve around him, and he felt a spasm of nausea) and went out onto the veranda. Below, lit by the tiny lanterns scattered amongst the banyan's leaves,
Ayulf was arguing with a tall thin man who stood in a coracle. The man was holding up what looked like a huge ragged book. There were other coracles at the edge of the darkness beyond the glow of the lanterns.
Tibor came out and stood at Pandaras's back. He said, "The woman wants to speak with you, young master." "Hush. I want to know what is going on."
"This is a bad place."
"I know. That's why I need to know what this is all about. "
"We should go."
"I want to fix the motor. I can do it, but I'm tired. Later. I'll finish it later."
Below them, Ayulf finished a long impassioned speech, but the man in the coracle made no reply and at last the trader threw up his skinny arms and climbed back to the veranda. He fell flat on his face when he clambered over the rail, got up and went inside and found another bottle of arak, ripped the plastic seal away with his teeth and took a long swallow.
. "They are impossible," Ayulf said petulantly, to no one in particular. He took another swallow and wiped his wet lips, glaring around at the women. A child woke somewhere and made a snuffling noise. Two more children clung to their mothers' legs, staring at the trader with big black eyes. In the corner, the fat old woman was calmly whittling her bit of wood. "Animals," the trader said. "Why am I wasting my time with animals?"
One by one, the fisherfolk climbed to the veranda and, stooping, entered the shanty. There were four of them.