"Karl Edward Wagner - Sing a Last Song of Valdese" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

"The fat blob is a half-wit!" sneered Claesna. "I judge his mind is rotten
with pox. I pity his wife, poor child. If our host hadn't sent a serving girl
to stay with her, these swine would certainly have left her to labor alone."
"The mystery of birth," quoted the abbot, "where pain is joyful duty."
Now the innkeeper moved among them, setting before each guest a wooden
trencher and loaf of black bread. Behind him walked a swarthy, bristle-bearded
dwarf, the first servant the priest had noted in the inn. His squat, powerful
arms carried a great platter of roast meat, which be presented to each guest
that he might serve himself as he desired. The fat merchant growled
impatiently when the dwarf halted first before the abbot and his two table
companions.
"Please, Jarcos!" his brother begged. "Don't offend these revered sirs!"
Hef giggled. "Don't eat it all now! Save a nice hefty bone for poor toothless
Hef!"
From overhead the screams, distant through the thick boards, sounded now at
closer intervals.
The innkeeper smiled nervously and wrung his black-gloved hands. "I'll bring
out more wine, Bodger," he told the dwarf. "Bring out your mandolin and play
for them."
The dwarf grinned and scuttled into the back rooms. He cavorted out again in a
moment, wearing a flop-brim bat with a feather and carrying a black-stained
mandolin. His strangely pointed fingers struck the strings like dagger tips,
and he began to caper about the room, singing comic ballads in a bullfrog
voice.
The moans from upstairs continued monotonously, and soon the travellers forgot
to listen to them, or to notice when they ceased.




III
"Do You Know the Song of Valdese?"


"Then, just as the hunter spun around at the sound, the werewolf leaped down
from the roof of his cabin! He clawed for the silver dagger at his belt, but
the sheath was empty! Too late he remembered the old man's warning! And as he
died, he saw that the beast at his throat had the sun-colored eyes of his
wife!"
Claesna leaned back against his chair and blew smoke at the listeners circled
about the fire.
"Bravo!" squealed Jarcos, the fat merchant. "Oh, that was go, good! Do you
mean that the werewolf was really his wife, then?"
Claesna did not deign to reply, instead nodded acceptance of the others'
applause.
The meal was a scattering of picked bones and cheese rinds. The autumn night
tightened its chill around the inn, where inside the travellers shared the
companionship of wine and a warm fire. The hour grew late, but no one yet
sought his bed. Pulling chairs in a rough circle about the glowing hearth,
they had listened to the ballads of Bodger the dwarf, and as the night wore on