"Mary Renault - Greece 8 - Funeral Games" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

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FUNERAL GAMES Copyright ┬й 1981 by Mary Renault the ziggurat of bel-marduk
had been half ruinous for a century and a half, ever since Xerxes had humbled
the gods of rebellious Babylon. The edges of its terraces had crumbled in
landslides of bitumen and baked brick; storks nested on its ragged top, which
had once held the god's golden bedchamber and his sacred concubine in his
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golden bed. But this was only defacement; the ziggurat's huge bulk had defined
destruction. The walls of the inner city by the Marduk Gate were three hundred
feet high, but the ziggurat still towered over them. Near by was the god's
temple; this Xerxes' men had succeeded in half demolishing. The rest of the
roof was patched with thatch, and propped on shafts of rough-hewn timber. At
the inner end, where the columns were faced with splendid but chipped enamels,
there was still a venerable gloom, a smell of incense and burnt offerings. On
an altar of porphyry,. under a smoke-duct open to the sky, burned in its
bronze basket the sacred fire. It was low; the fuel-box was empty. Its shaven
acolyte looked from it to the priest. Abstracted though he was, it caught his
eye. "Fetch fuel. What are you about? Must a king die when it serves your
laziness? Move! You were got when your mother was asleep and snoring." The
acolyte made a sketchy obeisance; the temple discipline was not strict. The
priest said, after him, "It will not be yet. Maybe not even today. He is tough
as a mountain lion, he will die hard." Two tall shadows fell at the temple's
open end. The priests who entered wore the high felt miters of Chaldeans. They
approached the altar with ritual gestures, bowing with hand on mouth. The
priest of Marduk said, "Nothing yet?" "No," said the first Chaldean. "But it
will be soon. He cannot speak; indeed he can scarcely breathe. But when his
homeland soldiers made a clamor at the doors, demanding to see him, he had
them all admitted. Not the commanders; they were there already. The
spear-bearers, the common foot-men. They were half the morning passing through
his bedchamber, and he greeted them all by signs. That finished him, and now
he is in the death-sleep. A door behind the altar opened to let in two Marduk
priests. It gave a glimpse of a rich ulterior; embroidered hangings, a gleam
of gold. There was a smell of spiced meats cooking. The door closed on
it. The Chaldeans, reminded of an old scandal, exchanged glances. One of them
said, "We did our best to turn him from the city. But he had heard that the
temple had not been restored; and he thought we were afraid of him." A Marduk
priest said stiffly, "The year has not been auspicious for great works.
Nebuchadrezzar built in an inauspicious year. His foreign slaves rioted race
against race, and threw each other off the tower. As for Sikandar, he would
still be fortunate, sitting safe in Susa, if he had not defied the god." One
of the Chaldeans said, "It seems to me he did well enough by the god, for all
that he called him Herakles." He looked round, pointedly, at the half-ruined
building. He might as well have said aloud, "Where is the gold the King gave