"stross, charles - different flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

presume upon your patience, but -- "
The Bishop smiled and bobbed his head. "But why, if that is the case, do you
come out here to take in the sunset?" he asked. "Surely there is a ball behind
us, and no shortage of guests who would willingly trip away the darkness with
the lady of the household come Heaven or Nightmare! Why come out here?"
He watched her face closely. The Bishop was not a young man -- there were very
few such still alive -- and he had done many strange things before he took the
cloth, yet there was a kernel within Lady Stael that, should it crack, he feared
to see. She had lived within her shell for a long time; and she had steeped
herself soul-deep in a bitterness like that of cyanic almonds, until her facade
of youth was a mockery. Her husband had not been seen for many years, not since
he set off on his crusade in search of the unsighted lands of the anti-arctic:
and yet still she remained loyal to his memory and maintained appearances.
She breathed deeply. "I am not a young maiden any more, Marcus, however I might
preserve this flesh I inhabit. Please don't presume upon my innocence. Presume
by all means upon my chastity -- certainly, in the absence of my lord and master
-- but not upon my naivete! Without the Paramage all life might have fled this
soul long ago. I owe him this appointment, upon the unburied body of my past
lives, but I shall not be coerced into enjoying it! For I know what game that
man has brought his friends h ere to play, tonight."
The Bishop was taken aback at this invective, directed by a member of the fair
sex at a gentleman of whom, although he had little direct knowledge, he had
heard much. "Surely it is not as bad as that?" he asked, unwisely treading upon
her sensibilities. "Has he made any improper adv -- "
"He has not," she said icily. "It is merely his presence, and all that it
implies! On this night of all nights, to be trapped on a crumbling balcony with
such a man! The indignity!"
The Bishop sighed. "My Lady," he said, "do you not remember the teachings of Our
Lord? That self-consciousness is the greatest sin, for the unconscious mind does
know things of which we are unaware, so that we would live lives enchained
within the dungeons of our psyches were we not to expose it to each other in
agape? That, therefore, to hold to this grudge solely on behalf of his perceived
guilt for a crime not yet -- "
" -- You have not heard it from his own lips!" she exclaimed, falling silent
with a sudden vehemence that spoke louder than her words. "From the lips of the
Paramage, I mean; far be it from me to impute doubts as to your interpretation
of Our Lord's Message!"
"Pardon me then, my Lady," said the Bishop, touching his rosary to feel the holy
pentagon. "Would it not then be worthwhile for me to discern the truth for
myself, from the lips of the man whom you assert is making this demand upon you?
And perhaps, in so doing, lead another lost soul into the light?"
She sighed, and suddenly he perceived the evanescent quality of youth that her
husband Lord Stael must have discerned in her when he married her so many years
ago. "You are right and true as always, Marcus: your Holiness. I should not lose
my temper over such ... trifles. If the world is indeed coming to an end,
tonight of all nights, it is unfitting for me to reach the extent of my life as
a middle-aged harridan ... "
"How many years have you been lady of this demesne?" asked the Bishop, softly.
He turned and stared out at the shadows lengthening across the lawn below.
"Four decades past," she said quietly. With a gloved hand she gathered up the