"Walter Jon Williams - No Spot of Ground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

Clingman spat in annoyance, then saluted and started the process of getting his brigade turned around.
Poe stared after him and bit back his own anger. Orders would come. Surely his division hadn't been
forgotten.

"Massa Poe?"

Poe gave a start. With all the noise of marching feet and shouted orders, he hadn't heard Sextus
Pompeiius creeping up toward him. He looked at his servant and grinned.

"You gave me a scare, Sextus. Strike me if you ain't invisible in the dark."

Sextus chuckled at his master's wit. "I found that cider, Massa Poe."

Poe scowled. If his soft cider hadn't got lost, he wouldn't have had to interrupt the Starkers' wake in
search of lemonade. He began limping toward his headquarters tent, his cane sinking in the soft ground.

"Where'd you find it?" he demanded.

"That cider, it was packed in the green trunk, the one that came up with the divisional train."

"I instructed you to pack it in the brown trunk."

"I know that, Massa Poe. That fact must have slipped my mind, somehow."

Poe's hand clenched the ivory handle of his cane. Renewed anger poured like fire through his veins.
"Worthless nigger baboon!" he snapped.

"Yes, Massa Poe," Sextus said, nodding, "I is. I must be, the way you keep saying I is."

Poe sighed. One really couldn't expect any more from an African. Changing his name from Sam to
Sextus hadn't given the black any more brains than God had given him in the first place.

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 No Spot of Ground



"Well, Sextus," he said. "Fortuna favet fatuis, you know." He laughed.

"Massa always has his jokes in Latin. He always does."

Sextus's tone was sulky. Poe laughed and tried to jolly the slave out of his mood.

"We must improve your knowledge of the classics. Your litterae humaniores, you understand."

The slave was annoyed. "Enough human litter around here as it is."

Poe restrained a laugh. "True enough, Sextus." He smiled indulgently. "You are excused from your
lessons."