"Paul McAuley - The Book of Confluence 01 - Child of the River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

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0 N I I V I N I N G E A R I Y in spring, with the wheel of the Galaxy
tilted waist-deep at the level horizon of the Great River,
Yama eased open the shutters of the window of his room
, and stepped out onto the broad ledge. Any soldier looking
up from the courtyard would have seen, by the Galaxy's bluewhite
light, a sturdy boy of some seventeen years on the
ledge beneath the overhang of the red tile roof, and recognized
the long-boned build, pale sharp face and cap of black
hair of the Aedile's foundling son. But Yama knew that Sergeant
Rhodean had taken most of the garrison of the peelhouse
on patrol through the winding paths of the City of the
Dead, searching for the heretics who last night had tried to
firebomb a ship at anchor in the floating harbor. Further, three
men were standing guard over the laborers at the Aedile's
excavations, leaving only the pack of watchdogs and a pentad
of callow youths under the command of old one-legged Rotwang
, who by now would have finished his nightly bottle of
brandy and be snoring in his chair by the kitchen fire. With
the garrison so reduced there was little chance that any of
the soldiers would leave the warm fug of the guardroom to
patrol the gardens, and Yama knew that he could persuade
the watchdogs to allow him to pass unreported.




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It was an opportunity for adventure too good to be missed.
Yama was going to hunt frogs with the chandler's daughter,
Derev, and Ananda, the sizar of the priest of Aeolis's temple.
They had agreed on it that afternoon, using mirror talk.
The original walls of the Aedile's peel-house were built of
smooth blocks of keelrock fitted together so cunningly that
they presented a surface like polished ice, but at some point
in the house's history an extra floor had been added, with a
wide gutter ledge and gargoyles projecting into the air at
intervals to spout water clear of the walls. Yama walked
along the ledge as easily as if on a pavement, turned a corner,
hooked his rope around the eroded ruff of a basilisk frozen
in an agonized howl, and abseiled five stories to the ground.
He would have to leave the rope in place, but it was a
small risk.
No one was about. He darted across the wide, mossy lawn,