"Jane Yolen - Feast of Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yolen Jane)

feast of souls lets us listen with lenient ears. There are many perhapses that can be fashioned over
centuries of feasting.
The Younger leaves to get the food, relieved, yet fearful that food really will sustain his father in his
long dying. The squirrel collar tickles his neck, reminding him that it is not yet sable. The servants do not
lower their eyes as quickly to him as they will when he is master.
Two men, the estimable John dтАЩErley, who has given up mansions and marriage to remain MarshalтАЩs
squire, bound to him by the kind of love that men in this time enjoy but do not name, and Thomas Basset,
that consummate cipher, raise the earl up so that he may sit while eating.
Basset leaves the room to collect the food from The YoungerтАЩs own hands. There is still fear of
poisoning; someone might want to hasten the Flower of Chivalry to his death. He must not be rushed
before time.
DтАЩErley slips his hand behind the earlтАЩs back. The touch comforts them both, though neither will admit
it. Especially dтАЩErley, who has more to lose by such an admission, having neither wife nor child nor
clericтАЩs collar to save him from calumnies.
I show myself to the earl, as does my companion. The white of our robes gleams in the dim lumens.
He cannot count our limbs nor make out the contours of our faces. It would not do to let him really see
our eyes. Hence the white robes.
Earl Marshal may be startled, but he is too old a hand at the uncanny and the unusual to do more than
blanch. Even as a child he was able to disguise his fears, joking with King StephenтАЩs hangmen when they
threatened him. Or perhaps he is now too weak to respond. He waits until the cloth is laid and the soup
bowl with the mushrooms and bread set before him. He waits until the cipher Basset leaves the room
again, for only dтАЩErley will he allow to feed him, to see him in his ultimate weakness. It is dтАЩErley, alone,
who wipes his bowels and changes the towels kept between his legs to stanch the flow which he can no
longer control.
Basset leaves and the earl turns his head slightly, speaking in a whisper to dтАЩErley, who must put his
head down next to the old manтАЩs mouth in order to hear. The earl does this for a reason, knowing how
much dтАЩErley is comforted and discomforted by the closeness of their connection. However, he does not
realize that his breath stinks, a compote of age and decay. If he did, it would discomfort him, for he was
ever a meticulous man.
But dтАЩErley, blinkered, can see nothing but the old manтАЩs covers, the red cross, the plate.
тАЬDo you see what I see?тАЭ Marshal asks. Since dтАЩErley does not at first understand him, the earl is
forced to repeat it twice more, weakening with each word.
тАЬMy Lord, I do not know what that might be,тАЭ dтАЩErley says, sure it is Death the earl sees, has seen
these past two months. But he is early in his assessment by days. My brother is busy elsewhere, reaping
still in the sands around Jerusalem and in the deltas of Africa, in LondonтАЩs awful slums.
тАЬBy my soul,тАЭ the earl says, the confession strong in his mouth, the very word exciting us to a fresh
brilliance, тАЬI see two men in white, one is beside me on the right, the other on the left. Nowhere have I
seen men so fine.тАЭ
Having been properly observed, we allow ourselves to fade away. Not men, of course. There are but
three of us in all the universe, and though I say тАЬbrotherтАЭ it is but a convenience, a nod to the sexing of
language in this world. We wear no gender. We do not reproduce. We are three and we are one,
together, forever.
But the earl, though he has seen us, he sees us as he would have us, not as we are. Besides, in his old
age he has developed problems with his vision, seeing rather less well than did his father, who lost an eye
at the convent of Wherewhell when the melting lead of a fired roof dripped directly upon his face. We
were neither to the earlтАЩs left nor his right, but rather hovering over his great bed.
But he had seen what he was meant to see, what the history says he saw. Witnessing, he passes it on,
impressing it upon dтАЩErley whose memory will serve as the maker of the chanson. Thus is the loop of
history preserved.
DтАЩErley answers, тАЬMy Lord, thus there come to you a company that will lead you in the true way,тАЭ