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

For the men on the windswept scaffolding the hours passed with agonizing slowness. Their -eyes kept turning back towards the small, insignificant door below the armoury steps. There was no sound or movement from there, until suddenly, in the middle of the cold rainswept morning, the door burst open and Jacobus Hop scuttled out into the courtyard. He tottered to the officers" hitching rail and hung onto one of the iron rings as though his legs could no longer support him. He seemed oblivious to everything around him as he stood gasping for breath like a man freshly rescued from drowning.

All work on the walls came to a halt. Even Hugo Barnard and his overseers stood silent and subdued, gazing down at the miserable little clerk. With every eye upon him, Hop suddenly doubled over and vomited over the cobbles. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked around him wildly as though seeking an avenue of escape.

He lurched away from the hitching rail and set off at a run, across the yard and up the staircase into the Governor's quarters. One of the sentries at the top of the stairs tried to restrain him but Hop shouted, "I have to speak to his excellency," and brushed past him.

He burst unannounced into the Governor's audience chamber. Van de Velde sat at the head of the long, polished table. Four burghers from the town were seated below him, and he was laughing at something that had just been said.

The laughter died on his fat lips as Hop stood trembling at the threshold, his face deathly pale, his eyes filled with tears. His boots were flecked with vomit.

"How dare you, Hop?" van de Velde thundered, as he dragged his bulk out of the chair. "How dare you burst in here like this?"

"Your excellency," Hop stammered, "I cannot do it. I cannot go back into that room. Please don't insist that I do it. Send somebody else."

"Get back there immediately," van de Velde ordered. "This is your last chance, Hop. I warn you, you will do your duty like a man or suffer for it."

"You don't understand." Hop was blubbering openly now. "I can't do it. You have no idea what is happening in there. I can't-" "Go! Go immediately, or you will receive the same treatment."

Hop backed out slowly and van de Velde shouted after him, "Shut those doors behind you, worm."

Hop staggered back across the silent courtyard like a blind man, his eyes filled again with tears. At the little door he stood and visibly braced himself. Then he flung himself through it and disappeared from the view of the silent watchers.

In the middle of the afternoon the door opened again and Slow John came out into the courtyard. As always he was dressed in the dark suit and tall Hat. His face was serene and his gait slow and stately as he passed out through the castle gates and took the avenue up through his gardens towards the residence.

Minutes after he had gone, Hop rushed out of the armoury and across to the main block. He came back leading the Company surgeon, who carried his leather bag, and disappeared down the armoury stairs. A long time afterwards the surgeon emerged and spoke briefly to Manseer and his men, who were hovering at the door.

The sergeant saluted and he and his men went down the stairs. When they came out again Sir Francis was with them. He could not walk unaided, and his hands and feet were swaddled in bandages. Red stains had already soaked through the cloth.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, they have killed him," Hal whispered as they dragged his father, legs dangling and head hanging, across the yard.

Almost as if he had heard the words, Sir Francis lifted his head and looked up at him. Then he called in a clear, high voice, "Hal, remember your oath!"

"I love you, Father!" Hal shouted back, choking on the words with sorrow, and Barnard slashed his whip across his back.

"Get back to work, you bastard."

That evening as the file of convicts shuffled down the staircase past the door of his father's cell, Hal paused and called softly, "I pray God and all his saints to protect you, Father."

He heard his father move on the rustling mattress of straw, and then, after a long moment, his voice. "Thank you, my son. God grant us both the strength to endure the days ahead." from behind the shutters of her bedroom Katinka watched the tall figure of Slow John &-Fcoming up the avenue from the Parade. He passed out of her sight behind the stone wall at the bottom of the lawns and she knew he was going directly to his cottage. She had been waiting half the day for his return, and she was impatient. She placed the bonnet on her head, inspected her image in the mirror and was not satisfied. She looped a coil of her hair, arranged it carefully over her shoulder, then smiled at her reflection and left the room through the small door out to the back veranda. She followed the paved path under the naked black vines that covered the pergola, stripped of their last russet leaves by the onset of the winter gales.

Slow John's cottage stood alone at the edge of the forest. There was no person in the colony, no matter how lowly his station, who would live with him as a neighbour. When she reached it Katinka found the front door open and she went in without a knock or hesitation. The single room was bare as a hermit's cell. The floors were coated with cow dung, and the air smelled of stale smoke and the cold ashes on the open hearth. A simple bed, a single table and chair were the only furniture.

As she paused in the centre of the room she heard water splashing in the back yard and she followed the sound.

Slow John stood beside the water trough. He was naked to the waist, and he was scooping water from the trough with a leather bucket and pouring it over his head.

He looked up at her, with the water trickling from his sodden hair down his chest and arms. His limbs were covered with the hard flat muscle of a professional wrestler or, she thought whimsically, of a Roman gladiator.

"You are not surprised to see me here," Katinka stated. It was not a question for she could see the answer in his flat gaze.