"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - A Baroque Fable" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

attention the raven has given him, and ordinarily it would be enough to cause the bird to become attentive
again (otherwise, there are consequences). However, this time, the raven takes a moment before he
looks again in the general direction of the master of the castle.
"Am I boring you?" Humgudgeon asks, in obvious and dreadful sarcasm.
The raven makes a low sound. Nervously it preens the long quills on its wings.
"Is there something you'd rather do? Would you prefer that I work these problems out on my own, so
that you need not be interrupted in whatever it is you do?" He waits, filling the silence with more of the
liquid in the cup.
Outside the Shape hovers and then departs, speeding away in the direction of Alabaster-on-Gelasta.
It takes a little time for Humgudgeon to finish what is in the goblet, and when he raises his beady, piggish
eyes they are decidedly muzzy. "I've given it a lot of thought," he says, not getting all the syllables quite
right. "I know that it is Sigmund we must defeat before anything can be done about Rupert. Always get
the wizard first, that's my motto. Doubtless it is Sigmund who is the true power in Alabaster-on-Gelasta.
I'll
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Chelsea Quinn Yarbio
find out how he does whatever he's done, and then Rupert's rule will be ended, and I can begin my
occupation. You want to know how I am going to do this, now that you're giving me your notice, my
dear? I'm not going to give them away to someone as unreliable as you. That would be foolish, and I am
never foolish. He toasts himself with yet another goblet and drinks. The lace at his wrist becomes stained,
and some of the threads are eaten away, as if what is in the goblet is faintly corrosive.
Before Humgudgeon can quite finish the goblet, there is a knock at the door. It is urgent, almost
desperate, and a voice is heard calling out through the planking: "Your Maleficence! Your Maleficence!"
"I gave orders I was not to be disturbed," Humgudgeon calls out, showing his teeth in an expression that
is anything but a smile. "You're disturbing me."
"A thousand pardons, Your Maleficence. If it were not a mater of life and death..." The pounding is
renewed and Humgudgeon glares at it.
"Whose life and death?" he demands, casting an irate glance at the raven. "All right. Enter. But this had
better be worth the disturbance or you will suffer for it."
The enormous door groans inward on ancient hinges and a man in the wreck of a military uniform with his
wig askew stumbles in to fall at Humgudgeon's feet. "Your Maleficence, we have tried to follow your
orders, but... Tottering-in-the-Vfold has fallen to vandal hoards. The Umbrous Stronghold is besieged!
We tried!"
"How very distressing," Humgudgeon says, carefully drawing his feet back so that the poor fellow before
him cannot touch any part of him.
"The city was sacked, the ships were sunk, the castle was razed and they gave the marshal a bloody
nose." With each new element of disaster, the man in the shredded uniform tries to get his head lower
than it was. By the end of his recitation, his forehead is on the floor.
"Dear me." Humgudgeon reached for a fan and snaps it open. "Downwind, vartlet."
Obediently the man drags himself along the floor to a different vantage point. 'The food is gone, the water
is poisoned, the fires are spreading and it is the flea season," he informs Humgudgeon in a quaking tone.
A BAROQUE FABLE
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"You're most alarming," Humgudgeon says, fanning himself with vigor and raising an eyebrow in the
direction of the raven.
Finally the poor fellow raises his head. "Well?" he beseeches.
"Well?" Humgudgeon echoes, astonished that the man should still be there.
"You're the Protector Extraordinary. Do something!" This time when he lowers his head to the stones, it
is because he has almost fainted.
"What?" Humgudgeon demands. "Surely you don't expect me to go there, actually put myself in danger,