"Roads by Seabury Quinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quinn Seabury)

"I - I came to see the Master," she sobbed softly. "I had
the dreadful malady, and I sought His cure."
"Aye? And didst thou find it?"
"Yea, that did I. As He went by, all burdened with His
gibbet, I called on Him and asked His mercy, and He did but

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raise the fingers of one hand and look on me, and behold - I
am clean and whole again. See, is not my skin as fresh and
clean as any maiden's?"
He moved a little farther from her, but she crept toward
him, holding out her hands for him to touch. "Behold me, I
am clean!" she whispered rapturously. "No more will I be
shunned of men -"
"By this one thou wilt be," he broke in grimly. "What
have I to do with thee and thy kind, Girl? The earthquake
passes; it is safe for thee to walk the streets again. Get thee to
thy business. Be gone."
"But my broken foot - I cannot walk. Wilt thou not
help me to my place -"
"Not I, by Thor! Let the scented darlings of the palace
see to that." He shook her clinging hands away and half rose
to his feet when a voice - the well-remembered voice his
inward ear had heard before - came to him:
"Despise her not. I have had mercy on her, and thou -
and I - have need of her in the work ordained for thee.
Claus, take her to thee."
He stood irresolute a moment, then: "I hear and obey,
Lord," he answered and sank down again upon the turf.
"How art thou called?" he asked the girl.
"Erinna, may it please your magnificence."
"A Greek?"
"Tyrian, my lord." She moved closer to him and rubbed
her supple body against his breastplate with a gentle, coaxing

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manner. "They brought me over the bright water while I was
still a child, and schooled me in the arts of love, and I am very
beautiful and much desired, but now I am all thine." She
bowed her head submissively and put his hand upon it.
"Thou didst battle with the earthquake for me, and rived me
from its clutches; now I belong to thee by right of capture."
Claus smiled, a trifle wryly. "What need have I, a plain
blunt soldier, for such as thou?"