"Janet Morris - Crusaders In Hell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

Should you and your friend, Enlddu, decide to return to Uruk, to regain your
rightful places there, I might be persuaded to help you.' And then a canny
glimmer came into the eyes of Sulla. "Of course, we would have to know just
where in the land this Uruk lies."
So Gilgamesh had replied truthfully that he did not know where in all the land
Uruk was situated, that he had never come upon it in his wanderings.
And the Roman had told him then of the fabled treasures of long-lost Uruk, and
offered again to help him find his home.
Such good news did Gilgamesh have for Enkidu, that he did not notice the quiet
until he was upon the very camp itself.
There he saw scattered bodies, ruined wagons, and such destruction as made him
cover up his eyes.
Taking his hands away, Gilgamesh ran through the camp, calling out for Enkidu.
But Enkidu was nowhere in the camp. It was if the ground had swallowed him up,
as if the demons had taken him, as if he had never been. Body after body did
Gilgamesh turn face up in the dirt, but none of these were Enkidu.
After many lamentations, when Gilgamesh was exhausted in his grief, he sank
down beside the ruined red-and-yellow wagon of the woman Enkidu had loved.
And there he waited.
Perhaps Enkidu had gone hunting. Perhaps he had not come back to camp at all.
Perhaps he would come back, if Gilgamesh waited long enough.
With a throat raw from lamentation, Enkidu sat there in the dust and watched
the bodies of the dead around him disappear: some burst into flame, and those
moved as if alive while they burned; some became like water and soaked into
the soil; some melted like tallow over a flame; some simply disappeared.
While he was waiting for Enkidu to return, thinking of the dolphin-prowed ship
at anchor, ready to take them to the island of Pompeii, Gilgamesh heard a
sound.
A cry. A whine. A mewling sob of pain.
Up rose Gilgamesh, searching out the source of this heart-rending cry, and
found a dog, underneath the woman's wagon, bleeding from his neck and from his
right forepaw.
Gilgamesh knew this dog, whom the woman called Ajax, although Enkidu had told
him the dog did not recognize that name. He said, "Dog! Ajax dog, I am
Gilgamesh to whom all secrets have been revealed! I can heal you if you let me
touch you. Do not bite me, dog."
The dog raised his muzzle and bared his teeth as Gilgamesh reached for him.
Then he sighed a heavy sigh and put his head down on his unwounded paw so that
Gilgamesh could touch him.
When Gilgamesh touched the dog, it quivered and then it closed its eyes. When
Gilgamesh cleaned the dog's wounds and dressed them with unguents from the
woman's wagon, the dog cried but did not bite him.
When Gilgamesh bound the dog's wounds with strips of yellow silk from the
wagons curtains, the dog wagged its weary tail.
When it was clear that Enkidu was not returning to the caravan, the king of
Uruk picked up the dog called Ajax in his arms and carried it to the boat
waiting to take them to Pompeii.
So did Gilgamesh set sail for the magical city, with a wounded dog for his
companion, and from there, perhaps, to trek to long-lost Uruk. And because
Enkidu was no longer with him, Gilgamesh stroked the dog and told it