"Gene Wolfe - Long Sun 3 - Calde Of The Long Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

not." Surreptitiously, he wiped jam from one finger.
"You become conscious of recurrences, the cyclical nature of
myth. When first I received the baculus, I had occasion to survey
many old documents. I read each with care. It was my custom to
devote three Hieraxdays a month to that. To that alone, and to
inescapable obsequies. I gave my prothonotary the straitest
instructions
to make no appointments for that day. It's a practice I recommend,
Patera."
Thunder rattled the room again, lightning a dragon beyond the
windows.
"I will, um, reinstitute this wise usage at once, Your
Cognizance."
"At once, you say?" Quetzal looked up from the silver pot,
resolved to repowder his chin at the first opportunity. "You may go
to young Incus and so instruct him, if you want. Tell him now,
Patera. Tell him now."
"That is--ah--unfeasible, I fear, Your Cognizance. I sent Patera
Incus upon a--um--errand Molpsday. He has not--um--rejoined us."
"I see. I see." With a trembling hand, Quetzal raised his cup
until
its gilt rim touched his lips, then lowered it, though not so far as
to
expose his chin. "I want beef tea, Patera. There's no strength in
this.
I want beef tea. See to it, please."
Long accustomed to the request, his coadjutor rose. "I shall
prepare it with my own hands, Your Cognizance. It will--ah--occupy
only an, um, trice. Boiling water, an, um, roiling boil. Your
Cognizance may rely upon me."
Slowly, Quetzal replaced the delicate cup in its saucer as he
watched Remora's retreating back; he even spilled a few drops
there, for he was, as he had said, careful. The measured closing of
the door. Good. The clank of the latchbar. Good again. No one
could intrude now without noise and a slight delay; he had designed
the latching mechanism himself.
Without leaving his chair, he extracted the puff from a drawer on
the other side of the room and applied flesh-toned powder delicately
to the small, sharp chin he had shaped with such care upon arising.
Swinging his head from side to side as before, frowning and smiling
by turns, he studied the effect in the teapot. Good, good!
Rain beat against the windows with such force as to drive
trickles
of chill water through crevices in the casements; it pooled
invitingly
on the milkstone windowsills and fell in cataracts to soak the
carpet.
That, too, was good. At three, he would preside at the private
sacrifice of twenty-one dappled horses, the now-posthumous offering
of Councillor Lemur--one to all the gods for each week since