"Mitchell Smith - Moonrise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Mitchell)

amiable dog." Though, as was Newton's way, he was more patient thereafter.
... The kennel quieted after a time. The lodge camp quieted. Only a fire's hiss and crackle, only an
owl far away, only the night wind sounded through the trees as Bajazet walked cloaked into camp as if he
were a forester with ordinary business there тАФ had perhaps been out to john trench, and was coming back
to coarse blanket and pack pillow. Though the two men at the lodge's steps, if they'd noticed, might have
wondered why he strolled around to the back of the building, where no fires burned.
Bajazet threw back the cloak's hood, managed his scabbarded rapier clear, and climbed the
fire-ladder back up the way he'd come, a coward fleeing, the morning before. The climb тАФ a dozen rungs
up a simple ladder тАФ was surprisingly difficult; he had to stop once to rest, and hung there, very tired.
The window was swung closed, its leaded squares of glass giving blurred vision down an empty
corridor lit by two whale-oil lamps hung to ceiling hooks by fine brass chains.
Odd, that he'd never noticed such detail. It all seemed new, not quite the lamp-lit hallway it had been.
He'd left the memory of it behind, as he fled.
Bajazet drew his dagger, slid the long, slender blade between window frame and jamb... and forced
it, levering just beneath the simple catch. It was wonderful how the knife spoke to him through its grip, the
steel reporting angle and effort... mentioning its limits, but not seriously.
Bajazet felt the latch at the blade's top edge, and lifted it.
The window squeaked and swung wide. He threw a leg over and was in, stood in indoor warmth for
a moment, smelled roasted meat, and suddenly felt sick. The heat seemed furnace heat, so he swayed,
wanting to lie down. He closed his eyes, breathed deep... and felt a little better. Then, his eyes open, he
walked as through a dream down the long corridor to his chamber. And, as he lifted the door latch, felt
certain as Floating-Jesus who he would find. He stepped in, and closed the door behind him.
Mark Cooper, awake in this small hour as if by appointment, stood startled before the sideboard and
a tray of food, barefoot in a bed-robe of velveted maroon.
"... Baj!... Thank Lady Weather! I thought these idiots might have killed you." Great relief on young
Mark's face. Great relief. "I just got out here, late, and put a stop to it. No reason for you to be involved in
this at all." Mark took a step forward, then a step back as Bajazet came to him."... My father. My father
has ordered things тАФ"
"Newton?"
A nod from sad Mark Cooper. "I'm just so sorry, Baj. Dad... I never thought he'd do something like
this!"
 "Pedro, and the others?"
"Well... I don't know about all of them. But Darry killed three of our people тАФ my father's men. It
was all just a real tragedy." He shook his head. "Terrible..."
Perhaps it was hunger that so sharpened a person's eyes. Sharpened his ears as well. Bajazet heard
Mark's voice subtly uncertain as a banjar's slightly warped by having been brought indoors directly on a
winter evening. The voice, like that instrument's, was almost true, but not quite. Cooper's eyes, still the mild
blue of his childhood, had shifted, just slightly, toward the door тАФ for escape, for what help might come to
him if he had time to shout, if a slant-eyed, dark-eyed fugitive, grimed with mud and smelling like a forest
creature gone to earth, weren't standing so close, his hand on the hilt of his long left-hand dagger.
Bajazet saw the food on the sideboard was still steaming, brought up not long ago. A hot meal now
seemed as good a reason as revenge. As good a reason as leaving Gareth Cooper with no heir to his stolen
throne.
"You'll be safe, Baj." The heir, frightened, and barefoot in his bed-robe. "Really. I promise,
absolutely."
"And will also bring Newton back to life?" Bajazet drew the left-hand dagger as he reached to cover
Mark's mouth with his right hand, stepped in, and thrust him deep, three swift times with rapid soft punching
sounds тАФ into the gut, the liver, and through the heart's gristle.
Mark stood on his toes with the long blade still in him, arching away, squealing into the muffling hand
like a girl in her pleasure. Then fell forward, staring, slumped into Bajazet... clutched his cloak, and seemed