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

you to rebuild, have you eaten and drunk it all?" There was a hostile
silence. The chief of the Marduk priests said, with emollient dignity,
"Certainly you gave him a true prediction. And since then have you read the
heavens?" The tall miters bent together in slow assent. The oldest Chaldean,
whose beard was silver against his dark face and purple robe, signed to the
Marduk priest, beckoning him to the broken end of the temple. "This," he said,
"is what is foretold for Babylon." He swept round his gold-starred wand,
taking in the crumbling walls, the threadbare roof, the leaning timber-props,
the fire-stained paving. "This for a while, and then... Babylon was." He
walked towards the entry and stood to listen; but the night noises were
unchanged. "The heavens say it begins with the death of the King." The priest
remembered the shining youth who, eight years before, had come offering
treasure and Arabian incense; and the man who had returned this year,
weathered and scarred, the red-gold hair sun-bleached and streaked with white;
but with the deep eyes still burning, still ready with the careless, reflex
charm of the youth beloved, still terrible in anger. The scent of the incense
had lasted long on the air, the gold much longer in the treasury; even among
men who liked good living, half was in the strongroom still. But for the
priest of Bel-Marduk the pleasure had drained out of it. It spoke now of
flames and blood. His spirit sank like the altar fire when the fuel was
low. "Shall we see it? Will a new Xerxes come?" The Chaldean shook his head.
"A dying, not a killing. Another city will rise and ours will wane. It is
under the sign of the King." "What? Will he live, then, after all?" "He is
dying, as I told you. But his sign is walking along the constellations,
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further than we can reckon in years. You will not see it setting in your
day." "So? Well, in his life he did us no harm. Maybe he will spare us
dead." The astrologer frowned to himself, like an adult seeking words to
reach a child. "Remember, last year, the fire that fell from heaven. We heard
where it fell, and went there, a week's journey. It had lit the city brighter
than full moon. But we found, where it had struck, it had broken into red-hot
embers, which had charred the earth around them. One had been set up by a
farmer in his house, because that day his wife bore twin sons. But a neighbor
had stolen it for its power; they fought, and both men died. Another piece
fell at a dumb child's feet, and speech came back to him. A third had kindled
a fire that destroyed a forest. But the Magus of the place had taken the
greatest piece, and built it into the fire-altar, because of its great light
while it was in the sky. And all this from the one star. So it will be." The
priest bowed his head. A fragrance drifted to him from the precinct's kitchen.
Better to invite the Chaldeans than let the meat spoil with waiting. Whatever
the stars said, good food was good food. The old Chaldean said, looking into
the shadows, "Here where we stand, the leopard will rear her young." The
priest made a decent pause. No sound from the royal palace. With luck, they
might get something to eat before they heard the wailing. The walls of
Nebuchadrezzar's palace were four feet thick, and faced with blue-glazed tiles
for coolness; but the mid-summer heat seeped in through everything. The sweat
running down Eumenes' wrist blotted the ink on his papyrus. The wax glistened