"Mary Renault - Greece 1 - The King Must Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

I could not endure his voice sawing at the stillness. The offended silence seemed to brood around us. "Go
away!" I said. "Can't you feel Poseidon is angry?"

He stared at me; then gave a jeering whinny. As it left his mouth, the air above us was loud with whirring
wings. All the birds in the grove had left their trees, and hung above uttering their warning calls. At the
sound I tingled all over, body, limbs, and head. I did not know what oppressed me so; but Simo's
laughter was past bearing. I shouted, "Get out!" and stamped my foot.

My foot struck the earth; and the earth moved.

I felt a rumbling, and a sideways ripple, such as some huge horse's flank might give to shake off flies.
There was a great noise of cracking timber, and the roof of the shrine came leaning down toward us.
Men shouted, women shrieked, dogs barked and howled; the old cracked voice of Kannadis called on
the god; and suddenly there was cold water all about my feet. It was pouring out from the sanctuary,
from the rocks of the holy spring.

I stood half dazed. In all the din, I felt my head clear and lighten, like the air after thunder. "It was this," I
thought. "I felt it coming." Then I remembered how I had felt strange, and cried, when I was four years
old.

Everywhere in the precinct and beyond, people invoked Poseidon Earth-Shaker, and vowed him
offerings if he would be still. Then close at hand I heard a voice weeping and bawling. Simo was walking
backwards, his clenched fist pressed in homage to his brow, and crying, "I believe! I believe! Don't let
 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html




him kill me!"

As he blubbered, he backed into a slab of rock, and went down flat, and started to roar, so that the
priests came running, thinking he was hurt. He went on babbling and pointing at me, while I stood too
shaken to be glad, swallowing tears and wishing for my mother. The water was turning to mud about my
toes. I stood in it, hearing the cries of the wheeling birds and Simo's sobbing, till old Kannadis came up
and made the sign of homage. Then he stroked the hair from my forehead, and led me off by the hand.

No one was killed in the earthquake; and of the houses cracked or broken, none fell right down. My
grandfather sent the Palace workmen with two new columns for the Shrine; they mended the conduit of
the holy spring, and the water returned to its course again. He came out himself to see the work, and
called me to him.

"I hear," he said, "that the god sent you a warning."

I had been long alone with my thought, till I hardly knew the truth any longer; but this came as true to me.
He knew such things, because he was priest as well as king. My mind rested.

"Henceforth," he said, "you will know it again. If it comes to you, run out of doors, and call to the people
that Poseidon is angry. Then they can save themselves, before the houses fall. Such warnings are a favor
of the god. Try to be worthy."