Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗

In the dawn Sukeena came to wake Katinka an hour before her appointed time. When she had helped her dress in a warm robe, she led her to the servants" quarters where a silent, frightened knot of slaves was gathered outside Zelda's door. They stood aside for Katinka to enter and Sukeena whispered, "I know how much she meant to you, mistress. My heart breaks for you."

"Thank you, Sukeena, Katinka answered sadly, and glanced quickly around the tiny room. The brazier had been removed. Slow John had been thorough and reliable.

"She looks so peaceful and what a lovely colour she has." Sukeena stood beside the bed. "Almost as if she were alive still."

Katinka came to stand beside her. The noxious fumes from the brazier had rouged the old woman's cheeks. In death she was more handsome than she had ever been in life. "Leave me alone with her for a while, please, Sukeena," she said quietly. "I wish to say a prayer for her. She was so dear to me."

As she knelt beside the bed Sukeena closed the door softly behind her. Katinka slid her hand under the mattress and drew out the purse. She could tell by its weight that none of the coins was missing. She slipped the purse into the pocket of her gown, clasped her hands in front of her and closed her eyes so tightly that the long golden lashes intermeshed.

"Go to hell, you old bitch she murmured.

Slow John came at last. Many long days and tormented nights they had waited for him, so long that Sir Francis Courtney had begun to imagine that he would never come.

Each evening, when darkness brought an end to the work on the castle walls, the prisoner teams came shuffling in, out of the night. Winter was tightening its grip on the Cape and they were often soaked by the driving rain and chilled to the bone.

Every evening, as he passed the iron-studded door of his father's cell, Hal called, "What cheer, Father?"

The reply, in a voice hoarse and choked with the phlegm of his illness, was always the same. "Better today, Hal. And with you?"

"The work was easy. We are all in good heart."

Then Althuda would call from the next-door cell, "The surgeon came this morning. He says that Sir Francis is well enough to be questioned by Slow John." Or on another occasion, "The fever is worse, Sir Francis has been coughing all day."

As soon as the prisoners were locked into the lower dungeon they would gulp down their one meal of the day, scraping out the bowls with their fingers, and then drop like dead men on the damp straw.

In the darkness before dawn Manseet would rattle on the bars of the cell. "Up! Up, you lazy bastards, before Barnard sends in his dogs to rouse you."

They would struggle to their feet, and file out again into the rain and the wind. There, Barnard waited to greet them, with his two huge black boar hounds growling and lunging against the leashes. Some of the seamen had found pieces of sacking or canvas with which to wrap their bare feet or cover their heads, but even these rags were still wet from the previous day. Most, though, were bare foot and half-naked in the winter gales.

Then Slow John came. He came at midday. The men on the high scaffolding fell silent and all work stopped. Even Hugo Barnard stood aside as he passed through the gates of the castle. In his sombre clothing, and with the wide-brimmed Hat pulled low over his eyes, he looked like a preacher on his way to the pulpit.

Slow John stopped at the entrance to the dungeons, and Sergeant Manseer came running across the yard, jangling his keys. He opened the low door, stood aside for Slow John, then followed him through. The door closed behind the pair and the watchers roused themselves, as though they had awakened from a nightmare and resumed their tasks. But while Slow John was within a deep, brooding silence hung over the walls. No man cursed or spoke, even Hugo Barnard was subdued, and at every chance their heads turned to look down at the closed iron door. low John went down the staircase, Manseer lighting the treads with a lantern, and stopped outside the door of Sir Francis's cell. The sergeant drew back the latch on the peephole and Slow John stepped up to it. There was a beam of light from the high window of the cell. Sir Francis sat on the stone shelf that served as his bunk, lifted his head and stared back into Slow John's yellow eyes.

Sir Francis's face was that of a sun-bleached skull, so pale as to seem luminous in the poor light, the long tresses of his hair dead black and his eyes dark cavities. "I have been expecting you," he said, and coughed until his mouth filled with phlegm. He spat it into the straw that covered the floor.

Slow John made no reply. His eyes, gleaming through the peep-hole, were fastened on Sir Francis's face. The minutes dragged by. Sir Francis was overwhelmed with a wild desire to scream at him, "Do what you have to do. Say what you have to say. I am ready for you." But he forced himself to remain silent and stared back at Slow John.

At last Slow John stepped away from the peep-hole and nodded at Manseer. He slammed the shutter closed and scurried back up the staircase to open the iron door for the executioner. Slow John crossed the courtyard with every eye upon him. When he went out through the gate men breathed again and there was" once more the shouting of orders and the answering murmur of curse and complaint from the walls.

"Was that Slow John?" Althuda called softly from the cell alongside that of Sir Francis.

"He said nothing. He did nothing," Sir Francis whispered hoarsely.

"It is the way he has," Althuda said. "I have been here long enough to see him play the same game many times. He will wear you down so that in the end you will want to tell him all he wants to know before he even touches you. That is why they named him Slow John."

"Sweet Jesus, it half unmans me. Has he ever come to stare at you, Althuda?"

"Not yet."

"How have you been so fortunate?"