"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 12 - Eloise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

They should be. It was part of the deal. Now let's get down to it.
Is the ship mine or not? Make up your mind."

Eglantine said, "I expect you would like to examine the crew."

Like the ship and the captain, the crew left much to be
desired. An engineer with a blotched and mottled face, who
reeked of cheap wine and had a withered hand. A handler, a boy;
star-crazed and willing to work for bed and board, filling in as
steward. A navigator, with rheumed eyes and a peculiar, acrid
odor which told of a wasting disease. And a minstrel.

He looked up from where he sat on his bunk, as Dumarest
looked through the door. Like the captain he was fat; unlike him,
he had a certain dignity which made his soiled finery more of a
challenge to an adversary than the outward evidence of laziness.
A stringed instrument lay on his lap; a round-bellied thing with
a delicate neck and a handful of strings which he was busy
tuning. A gilyre of polished wood and inset fragments of nacre,
once an expensive thing; now, like its owner, the worse for wear.

"Arbush," said Eglantine. "He plays for us."

"And gambles." said the man. He had a deep, pleasant voice.
"And sings at times; and tells long, boring tales if it should please
the company. And tells fortunes and reads the lines engraved in
palms. Once I saved the captain's life. Since then he has carried
me around."

Charity which Dumarest would never have suspected from the
captain. Or perhaps it was not simply that. Like the boy, the
minstrel was cheap labor.

He touched the strings of his instrument, and a chord lifted to
rise and echo in the air.

"A song," he said. "Which shall it be? A paen or a dirge?
Young love or withered discontent? Something to lift your heart
or to throw a shadow of gloom over the spirits? Name it and it
will be yours."

Dumarest caught the edge of bitterness, the hint of mockery.
An artist reduced to the status of a beggar. If he was an artist. If
the gilyre was more than just show.

"Later," said Dumarest. Outside, in the passage, he said to
Eglantine. "Call the boy."

He came, wary, his eyes wide in his thin face, his attitude
betraying the beatings he had suffered; the desperate need to