"Moorcock, Michael - Behold The Man2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

faced, heavily-bearded men, in cotton robes.
He wondered if he could form a sentence they might
understand. His knowledge of written Aramaic was good,
but he was not sure of certain pronunciations.
He cleared his throat. "Wherebethisplace?"
They frowned, shaking their heads and lowering their
water jars.
"IseekaNazareneJesus. . . ."
"Nazarene. Jesus." One of the men repeated the words,
but they did not seem to mean anything to him. He shrugged.
The other, however, only repeated the word Nazarene,
speaking it slowly as if it had some special significance for
him. He muttered a few words to the other man and went
towards the entrance of the room.
Karl Glogauer continued to try to say something the re-
maining man would understand.
"Whatyeardoththe Roman Emperorsitin Rome?"
It was a confusing question to ask, he realized. He knew
Christ had been crucified in the fifteenth year of Tiberius'
reign, and that was why he had asked the question. He tried
to phrase it better.
"How manyyeardoth Tiberius rule?"
"Tiberius?" The man frowned.
Glogauer's ear was adjusting to the accent now and he
tried to simulate it better. "Tiberius. The emperor of the
Romans. How many years has he ruled?"
"How many?" The man shook his head. "I know not."
At least Glogauer had managed to make himself under-
stood.
"Where is this place?" he asked.
"It is the wilderness beyond Machaerus," the man replied.
"Know you not that?"
Machaerus lay to the southeast of Jerusalem, on the other
side of the Dead Sea. There was no doubt that he was in the
past and that the period was sometime in the reign of
Tiberius, for the man had recognized the name easily enough.
His companion was now returning, bringing with him a
huge fellow with heavily muscled hairy arms and a great
barrel chest. He carried a big staff in one hand. He was
dressed in animal skins and was well over six feet tall. His
black, curly hair was long and he had a black, bushy beard
that covered the upper half of his chest. He moved like an
animal and his large, piercing brown eyes looked reflectively
at Glogauer.
When he spoke, it was in a deep voice, but too rapidly for
Glogauer to follow. It was Glogauer's turn to shake his head.
The big man squatted down beside him. "Who art thou?"
Glogauer paused. He had not planned to be found in this
way. He had intended to disguise himself as a traveler from
Syria, hoping that the local accents would be different enough