"Robert F. Young - In Saturn's Rings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

something grotesque about the whole performance. Something pitiful.
A scrap of ptarmigan had fallen to the table. Hera brushed it to the floor, and when the old "man"
returned for his last load, she pointed to the scrap with the toe of her sandal. "Pick it up, old man," she
said.
Socrates did so, then carried the rest of the dishes and platters from the room. "Make sure you get
them clean, old man," Hera called after him. For a moment Matthew felt sick to his stomach. Why
Socrates? he wondered. Why Pindar? Why Corinna? However, he held his silence, and presently the
matter drifted from his thoughts.
All matters drifted from his thoughts. All save one ....
Hera was a strong and scented wind blowing through him. The wine strengthened the wind, and he
found it increasingly difficult to stand against it. He swayed when she said, abruptly and without prelude,
"Will you bring the capsule down?" But he did not fall. Not quite.
"No," he said, "I can't."
She moved closer to him, the diamonds of her sarong-gown dancing in blinding blues and whites.
"You would not be bringing it down for nothing. I pay cash!"
"On delivery?" he heard his strange voice ask.
"You are an honorable man. Your word is good enough."
He swallowed. Her face was very close. It fascinated and repelled him simultaneously, but the
repulsion was a form of fascination in itself тАФ a perverted form, perhaps, but nonetheless compelling.
The thoughts that it awoke added to his drunkenness. He remembered that she was the only human being
he had seen since entering the House, and he knew suddenly that they were alone, and that she had
meant for them to be alone.
"Do I have your word?" she asked.
The dancing diamond-light of her sarong-gown half blinded him. He tried to speak, could not. His
glazed eyes made speech unnecessary. She stood up. "You have not seen the mezzanine," she said.
"Come, I will show it to you."

V

He followed her up the marble stairs on unsteady stilts of legs. Seen from above, the enormous
room brought to mind the concourse of an ancient railroad terminal. The mezzanine itself was a graceful
promenade, and the walls between the doors that opened off from it were decorated with the simplest of
Grecian designs. Hera opened one of the doors and stepped into the room beyond. Trembling, he
followed.
"My bath," she said.
It was the same bath he had peered into тАФ how many years ago тАФ and seen Dione Christopoulos.
He had been forty-five and afraid then. He was still afraid, but he was no longer forty-five. Nevertheless,
the restlessness that had afflicted him then came back.
Now he was in a position to apply the cure тАФ if making love to a beautiful woman who was far
above his status really was the cure. In any event, it was for sale. And circumstances had provided him
with the price.
The trouble was, part of the price was his loyalty to Zeus IX.
What was it that the capsule contained that Hera found so irresistible? he wondered. So irresistible
that she could not wait till her husband returned to indulge herself?
Drunk as he was, Matthew was still incapable of asking her pointblank. Wine or no wine, he was still
her servant. He dared not risk incurring her ill-will. But was her motivation really important? Wasn't it
enough that she did want the capsule brought down, and that only he knew its celestial hiding place?
After the bath, she showed him several other rooms, the last of which was her bedchamber. It was a
large room, and the three-dimensional murals on its walls made it seem even larger. The subject of the
murals brought a blush to his withered checks. He had read of the rites for which the Temple of Diana at