"Charles Stross - Examination Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

of the Academy were recognised in this tavern, and although tempers ran high on
Examination Night no-one would ever dream of waylaying him. Scholarly pranks could be
vicious to the point of malice, and the prospect of waking up in the arms of a century-old
corpse one morning тАУ or worse, of waking up as a century-old corpse тАУ could do wonders for
those of even the most villainous disposition. So it was that when Sebastian marched right up
to the bar, wobbled ever so slightly, crowed "a pint of sack! a pint of sack!" at the landlord,
and subsequently collapsed across the rough-hewn timbers of the bar, all but one of the
clientele knew enough to ignore him.
 "What do you mean by a pint of sack?" asked a fluting voice from the vicinity of his
left shoulder. It spoke with an outlandish accent, curiously musical and unsettling to
Sebastian's ears. He blinked and stopped tittering. Gonna throw up, he realised: the thought
was instantly sobering.
"You needn't trouble to answer right away," added the owner of the voice; "you
appear to be a little intoxicated and I would be most displeased if your reply came in the form
of a regurgitation across my boots."
Bloody foreigners, he though resentfully. It somehow slipped his befuddled brain that
he himself had been a foreigner no less than four years ago, and would shortly be one again.
He mustered a reply: "Sack, sirrah, is the fermented juice of the vine, blended and ice-cast
from the barrel. It's called sack because that's what they did to the city it came from, y'see.
Now are you ready to defend yourself or must I see my stomach and my honour slighted by a
coward?" He straightened up agressively, turned round, and stopped dead in his tracks.
"You are mistaken: I offer slight to neither organ," said the stranger. She smiled
faintly and a shock of electric recognition flew threw him: a wandering wysard! He breathed in
sharply and muttered a quick incantation for a lesser ward, but she merely shook her head.
"Really, as if that would do you any good, you scoundrel! Mind you don't spew over my cape,
though. And when you finish purging your bilious humours if you'd be so good as to order me
a drink... I shouldn't take it amiss, I warrant you."
Her presumption upon his familiarity was so great that Sebastian would have laughed
at her had he not first glanced into her eyes, and seen there a certain steadiness of gaze.
"Two pints of sack," he called to the barman, surprising himself. Then: "and get me a
bucket," he added, gulping. "I'm going to be тАУ"
How the door came to be open, and how he came to be doubled over beneath the
lintel with his stomach spraying the street and the rain spattering his hair, was a complete
mystery to Sebastian. How the woman came to be holding him by the shoulders was another
mystery. When he was done he straightened up, wiping his lips. Inebriation and water
conspired to bedraggle him so that he presented only a palid shadow of the infamous student
ruffian Sebastian de l'Amoque when he turned to address the woman. "I t hink I would
appreciate your company more if you had introduced yourself to me in the traditional manner.
What do you want of me, and why?"
She stepped back into the tavern, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of her
sword. Her lips quirked, so that if he ignored her eyes he could almost convince himself that
she was smiling like a coquette. "I am Anya of Tigre, and you are the Sieur de l'Amoque of
the Academy, lately apprenticed to the High Lord Wysard Vargas Escobar," she said, still
smiling that curious smile. "If this is so I am pleased to meet you, for I have been searching
this metropolitan midden for you for some time. But now would you care to drink at my
expense, and let me trouble you for the answer to some minor trivia; or would you rather
satisfy me with respect to the insult you rendered to my honour?"
Sebastian cleared his throat and spat in the gutter. A flash of sudden sobriety
showed him the gravity of his situation. "No offense was intended, madame, and it is my
sincerest hope that none should be taken at my earlier incoherence. If you would care to