"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Margaret Of Urbs 01 - The Black Flame" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

how, when a child, she had lost herself in it, so that her father had planted the tangle of blackberry bushes
that still concealed the opening.

He grinned, "Is it the eldarch's daughter speaking of humble folk? Your father will be taxing me
double if he hears of this."

She tossed her helmet of metallic hair. "He will if he sees you in that Selui finery of yours." Her eyes
twinkled. "For whose eyes was it bought, Hull? For you'd be better saving your money."

"Save silver, lose luck," he retorted. After all, it wasn't so difficult a task to talk to her. "Anyway,
better a smile from you than the glitter of money."

She laughed. "But how quickly you learn, mountainy! Still, what if I say I liked you better in tatters,
with your powerful brown muscles quivering through the rips?"

"Do you say it, Vail?"

"Yes, then!"

He chuckled, raising his great hands to his shoulders. There was the rasp of tearing cloth, and a long
rent gleamed in the back of his Selui shirt. "There, Vail!"

"Oh!" she gasped. "Hull, you wastrel! But it's only a seam." She fumbled in the bag at her belt. "Let
me stitch it back for you."

She bent behind him, and he could feel her breath on his skin, warm as spring sunshine. He set his
jaw, scowled, and then plunged determinedly into what he had to say. "I'd like to talk to you again this
evening, Vail."

He sensed her smile at his back. "Would you?" she murmured demurely.
 "Yes, if Enoch Ormiston hasn't spoken first for your time."

"But he has, Hull."

He knew she was teasing him deliberately. "I'm sorry," he said shortly.

"ButтАФI told him I was busy," she finished. "And are you?"

Her voice was a whisper behind him. "No. Not unless you tell me I am."

His great roar of a laugh sounded. "Then I tell you so, Vail."

He felt her tug at the seam, then she leaned very close to his neck, but it was only to bite the thread
with her white teeth. "So!" she said gaily. "Once mended, twice new."

Before Hull could answer there came the clang of File Ormson's sledge, and the measured bellow
of his Forge Song. They listened as his resounding strokes beat time to the song.

"Then it's ho-ohтАФho-ohтАФho! While I'm singing to the ringing Of each
blowтАФblowтАФblow! Till the metal's soft as butter Let my forge and bellows