"Edward Whittemore - The Jerusalem Quartet 01 - Sinai Tapestry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whittemore Edward)

Cambridge.
Strongbow was then over sixty and living as the poorest sort of bedouin. The oasis was on the haj route
from Damascus and one day Strongbow had to move quickly to turn aside a murderer's sword, which he
did, causing the murderer to wound himself. Then he squatted on the ground and began to bind the man's
wound.

Traveling in the caravan that year was Numa Numantius, the German erotic scholar and defender of
homosexuality, who happened to witness the performance and was astounded by it. At once he led his
Arab dragoman over to Strongbow.

Who are you really? asked the German, his interpreter repeating the words in Arabic. Strongbow replied
meekly in an ignorant bedouin dialect that he was what he appeared to be, a starving man of the desert
whose only cloak was the arm of Allah.

Numantius, the leading Latinist of the day and an exceedingly gentle man, said he knew for a fact only
two European fencing masters had ever been able to execute that particular technique, both Italians now
dead, and that although no one else in the Levant might be able to recognize the wizardry it implied, he
certainly was. For emphasis he even gave the maneuver its official Latin designation. The interpreter
repeated all this to Strongbow, who merely shrugged and went on binding the wound. Numantius was
growing more curious.

But master, whispered the interpreter, how can such a one be expected to answer? Look at his filth and
his rags. He's a wretch and a dog and that was a lucky blow, nothing more. Surely there can be no
learning of any land in such a brute.

But there is, said Numantius. How it can be I don't know and it's making me dizzy just to think of it. So
please tell him if he swears by his God he has never heard of these two Italians, I'll give him a Maria
Theresa crown.

The words were repeated in Arabic and a large crowd gathered. The money offered was a fortune in the
desert and there was no way a poor bedouin could be expected to refuse it. But Strongbow had never
sworn falsely in his life. Thus there was a more lengthy exchange between him and the interpreter.

What does he say? asked Numantius in awe. Does he swear?

No, he doesn't swear. In fact he says he once knew these two men in his youth.

What?

Yes, in a dream. In this dream he went to a large city from a large estate he owned. In that large city he
hired these two men to watch him use a sword, and that was when they learned the secret of this
particular maneuver as well as others. And he adds that since it was truly his secret in the beginning, what
you saw him do here a few minutes ago was original and real, whereas what you saw those two
Europeans do years ago was imitation and unreal. And all this he says in a language so barbaric it is
almost impossible to understand him.

Numantius staggered.

Original and real? Imitation and unreal? What gibberish is this? What madness?