"Kim Stanley Robinson - The Years Of Rice And Salt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

them haul a sail into the air on a mast, and the boat heeled to the side such that he threw himself the other
way. They roared with laughter at this. He grinned sheepishly, gesturing at the big lateen.

'It takes more wind than this breath to tip us.'
'Allah protect us from it.'

'Allah protect us.'

Muslims. 'Allah protect us,' Bold said politely. Then, in Arabic, 'In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate.' In his years in Temur's army he had learned to be as much a Muslim as anyone. The
Buddha did not mind what you said to be polite. Now it would not keep him from slavery, but it would
perhaps earn him a little more food. The men regarded him curiously. He watched the land slide by. They
untied his arms and gave him some dried mutton and bread. He tried to chew each bite a hundred times.
The familiar tastes called back to him his whole life. He ate what they gave him, drank fresh water from a
cup they gave him.

'Praise be to Allah. Thank you in the name of God the compassionate, the merciful.'

They sailed down a long bay, into a larger sea. At night they pulled behind headlands and anchored the
boat and slept. Bold curled under a coil of rope. Every time he woke in the night he had to remind himself
where he was.

In the mornings they sailed south and south again, and one day they passed through a long narrows into
an open sea, with big waves. The rocking of the boat was like riding a camel. Bold gestured west. The
men named it, but Bold didn't catch the name. 'They're all dead,' the men said.

The sunset came and they were still on the open sea. For the first

time they sailed all night long, always awake when Bold woke, watching the stars without talking to each
other. For three days they sailed out of the sight of any land, and Bold wondered how long it would go
on. But on the fourth morning the sky to the south grew white, then brown, A haze like the one that blew
out of the Gobi. Sand in the air, sand and fine dust. Land ho! Very low land. The sea and sky Both turn
the same brown Before catching sight of a stone tower, Then a great stone breakwater, fronting a
harbour.

One of the sailors happily names it: 'Alexandria!' Bold had heard the name, though he knew nothing
about it. Neither do we; but to find out more, you can read the next chapter.
THREE

In Egypt our pilgrim is sold into slavery; In Zanj he encounters again the inescapable Chinese.

His captors sailed to a beach, anchored with a stone tied to a rock, tied Bold up securely, and left him in
the boat under a blanket while they went ashore.

It was a beach for small boats, near an immense long wooden dockfront behind the seawall, which
served much bigger ships. When the men came back they were drunk and arguing. Without untying
anything but his legs, and with no more words to him, they pulled Bold out of the boat and marched him
down the great seafront of the city, which appeared to Bold dusty and salty and worn down, stinking in
the sun like a dead fish, of which there were indeed many scattered about. On the docks before a long
building were bales, boxes, great clay jars, netted bolts of cloth; then a fish market, which made his