"Tepper, Sheri S - A Plague Of Angels - plangel2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

him the small stream ran through a chain of shallow pools, where the silver water had been dammed with leaky lines of stones, constructions a chikl might have made.
And there was the child, up to his or her thighs in water, hunting something. Frogs, perhaps. Or crayfish.
"Hello," said Abasio cheerfully.
The child looked up briefly, then went back to whatever it was doing.
"I wonder if you could help me?" Abasio asked, getting down from his horse.
"Doubt it," said the child. "Ma says I'm as unhelpful a whelp as any she's had."
Abasio laughed dutifully. The child was looking at him mildly: unat?aid, cemainly, but with a proper wariness, nonetheless,
"No big matter, young'un. I heard that a refugee was spotted hem in the valley two days ago. I'm looking for such a person, that's all. I thought perhaps you knew where the mhgee had gone."
"That wasn't a mhgee," the child asse~ed, turning back to the bank and continuing its search. "That was my cousin Oily. She went too hr up the river, is all. She's never been here before, my cousin, so she went too far. Then she had to come back down, so maybe somebody thought she was a mhgee."
"Your cousin." His heart sank. He felt it thudding away in his boots. "From over near Longville. Oily Longaster.


She

124

Sheri S. Tepper

unmanly. It's a decadent tongue, Abasio, an impoverished tongue. As vocabulary is reduced, so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you can describe, the number of things you can identify! Not only understanding is limited, but also experience. Man grows by language. Whenever he limits language, he retrogresses!"
Maybe Grandpa had been right. Certainly now Abasio needed some of Grandpa's words. Like the word he had just thought of in reference to the unquiet jangling of his spirit and of the world at large: a dissonance.
It was noon before he arrived at Wise Rocks Farm. The people there had been named Suttle. The man had often been away, so the farm had been managed by his wife along with a bunch of children and other people, including some female relative with a simpleton-son. Likely they were still there.
So recalling, he turned in at the gate. A tributary brook ran beside the lane, bits of bark and leaves bobbing along beside him as he rode, losing themselves among the willows and sedges that lined the banks, washing ashore on grassy ledges. Rising around him was the fresh smell of wet soil and leaves, the scent of moist growth, and he stopped to breathe deeply, suddenly alive with a feeling of intense and totally unexpected joy. Beside him the small stream ran through a chain of shallow pools, where the silver water had been dammed with leaky lines of stones, constructions a child might have made.
And there was the child, up to his or her thighs in water, hunting something. Frogs, perhaps. Or crayfish.
"Hello," said Abasio cheerfully.
The child looked up briefly, then went back to whatever it was doing.
"I wonder if you could help me?" Abasio asked, getting down from his horse.
"Doubt it," said the child. "Ma says I'm as unhelpful a whelp as any she's had."
Abasio laughed dutifully. The child was looking at him mildly: unafraid, certainly, but with a proper wariness, nonetheless.
"No big matter, young'un. I heard that a refugee was spotted here in the valley two days ago. I'm looking for such a person, that's all. I thought perhaps you knew where the refugee had gone."
"That wasn't a refugee," the child asserted, turning back to the bank and continuing its search. "That was my cousin Oily. She went too far up the river, is all. She's never been here before, my cousin, so she went too far. Then she had to come back down, so maybe somebody thought she was a refugee."
"Your cousin." His heart sank. He felt it thudding away in his boots. "From over near Longville. Oily Longaster."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS 125

"Wandering around all alone?"
"Well, she came in a freight wagon as far as our road," the child said. "She just walked right on past us." The child turned limpid eyes on Abasio and smiled at him.
Abasio knew at once that the child was a girl and that she was lying to him. How many times had he seen that glance, all innocence? How many times seen that smile, all sweetness? Girls, girls, girls, and this one was lying through her teeth. Which meant it wasn't her cousin at all. Which meant...
~'I'11 ride on down and see your ma," he said with a smile. "She's Ori Suttle, isn't she?"
"How'd you know that?" the child snapped, glowering at him suspiciously.
"Oh, I was born and brought up over there," he said, pointing west and south, symbolizing the distance between thumb and forefinger, a little way only. "On a farm."
"You're a cityman," the child challenged. "Citymen dress like you. Mudcolored. Hair all covered up. Bet you your hair's a funny color under that cap."
"I'm a cityman now," Abasio agreed. "But I wasn't then. I remember your ma, Farmwife Suttle. And your aunt, what was her name? Upton? And her son. Is he still here?"
"Most everybody who ever was here is still here," the girl said, dismissing him as she turned back to the muddy bank.
Including the refugee, Abasio assured himself as he rode on down the lane. Certainly including the refugee.
Ori Suttle sat just inside the open door of the dairy, skimming cream with the assistance of the Widow Upton. Abasio dismounted and carefully tied his horse, taking his time about it so they could get a good look at him, then went close enough to bow and introduce himself as a former neighbor, now a cityman, out looking for a refugee who had been reported in the neighborhood.
"And what would you want with a refugee, cityman?" asked Farmwife Suttle, drawing her brows down in a scowl at him. "Some poor soul from some troubled place, already with enough worry on his poor head, driven out, no doubt, only to have you city hounds after him as well."
"I've been helpful to refugees in my time," said Abasio mildly. "Sometimes I can offer a job, or some advice as to where one might be found."
"I know your jobs," snorted the Widow. "Jobs for harlots and songhouse barkers and poor fools to be killed in the arena."
"I've never put anyone in the arena, fool or not," said Abasio stiffly.