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

ice-blue skirts of her gown and turned towards the table. "And I was thrice
reborn when he married me: firstly as a sailor of no consequence upon the Sea of
Yang, then as a -- woman -- who met with an untimely end, and then into my
present skin. Three lives, Bishop: is that all there is to this universe? Come,
let us join the gamers. You are right as usual, it would not be correct for me
to be inhospitable to my guests on this night of all nights."
She extended her arm and the Bishop took it, escorting her across the mossy
flagstones of the balcony towards the gaming table at which the wizard and his
companions waited. Behind them, the dancers whirled to the strains of a chamber
orchestra; they whirled as the rays of the setting sun lanced through the tall
glass windows and fell across the parquet for the last time; they spun like tops
across the polished floor as the sands trickled out through the smallest
aperture of all, as the great and universa l orrery ran down.
As they approached the table the Paramage glanced up. He paused in mid-sentence,
his mouth open as if entrapped in the incantation of some mystic function, and
then he began to smile. As he smiled, the two vacant chairs moved silently,
turning to accommodate their approaching occupants.
"Good evening to you, my Lady," said Jack-Jones. "Is that not Bishop Moran you
bring to our table? I must admit I was half-expecting him. A delight, I'm sure!"
He stood and extended a hand; behind him the rogue and the cowled sacerdote rose
to their feet..
Lady Stael extended an arm, and the Paramage bent to kiss her wrist. As his lips
brushed the black velvet of her glove a shot rang out from beneath the balcony,
followed by a moan of utter despair and loathing. The wizard and the lady froze
as the hooded monastic turned to stare across the garden. "The servants are
playing Muscovian Roulette," he said, his voice bereft of all intonation. "The
cook appears to have won. That is his wife's lament." There was a second shot,
and the moaning ceased instantly. < P> "Who will clear the dishes, then?" asked
Lady Stael.
Jack-Jones smiled again. "That is hardly a problem," he said. "Come, my Lady!
Eat, drink, be merry -- for tomorrow we will most certainly not be around to
die."
The Bishop sat down uneasily. As he did so, the chair slid towards the table as
if an invisible footman stood at his back. He grasped the arms, feeling carved
lion-faces press into his palms. "Would that I could be so certain, your
Excellency. If perhaps I have understood your prophecy correctly -- "
"Call me Jack, please!" said the wizard; "and I may call you Marcus, perhaps? My
Lady, you are radiant tonight! The earrings of amber are so fine; am I correct
in perceiving that those are tiny salamanders trapped within?"
She smiled coolly and withdrew her hand. "They are not amber but glass, and the
occupants are not reptiles," she said. "They are the embalmed brains of my
first-born twins, who came into this world rather too early. I shall not bear
any others," she added, "but it gives me a certain comfort to wear them from
time to time. I fancy I can hear them whispering to me ... "
The cowled priest nodded understandingly, and an odour of tomb-rot swept from
his hood. "That is a meagre encouragement, but a real one," he said. "As one who
has never sown or reaped the seed of the loins, it behoves me to congratulate
you upon your partial success. There was once a time when motherhood was cheap
and lives were short: but no more!"
He retreated from the balustrade, sat down and rearranged his cowl. The Bishop