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

"I was expecting you. I was expecting the Goddess Kali. Nobody else would dare come here," he said, and Katinka blinked at this unusual form of address.

She sat down on the low stone wall beside the pump, and was silent for a while. Then she asked, "Why do you call me that?" The death of Zelda had forged a strange, mystic bond between them.

"In Trincomalee, on the beautiful island of Ceylon beside the sacred Elephant Pool, stands the temple of Kali. I went there every day that I was in the colony. Kali is the Hindu Goddess of death and destruction. I worship her." She knew then that he was mad. The knowledge intrigued her, and made the fine, colourless hairs on her forearms stand erect.

She sat for a long time in silence and watched him complete his toilet. He squeezed the water from his hair with both hands, and then wiped down those lean, hard limbs with a square of cloth. He pulled on his undershirt, then picked up the dark coat from where it hung over the wall, shrugged into it and buttoned it to his chin.

At last he looked at her. "You have come to hear about my little sparrow." With that fine melodious voice he should have been a preacher or an operatic tenor, she thought.

"Yes,"she said. "That is why I have come."

It was as though he had read her thoughts. He knew exactly what she wanted and he began to speak without hesitation. He told her what had taken place that day in the room below the armoury. He omitted no detail. He almost sang the words, making the terrible acts he was describing sound as noble and inevitable as the lyrics from some Greek tragedy. He transported her, so that she hugged her own arms and began to rock slowly back and forth on the wall as she listened.

When he had finished speaking she sat for a long while with a rapturous expression on her lovely face. At last she shuddered softly and said, "You may continue to call me Kali. But only when we are alone. No one else must ever hear you speak the name."

"Thank you, Goddess." His pale eyes glowed with an almost religious fervour as he watched her go to the gate in the wall.

There she paused and, without looking round at him, she asked, "Why do you call him your little sparrow?"

Slow John shrugged. "Because from this day onwards he belongs to me. They all belong to me and to the Goddess Kali, for ever." Katinka gave a small ecstatic shiver at those words, then walked on down the path through the gardens towards the residence. Every step of the way she could feel his gaze upon her.

Sukeena was waiting for her when she returned to the residence. "You sent for me, mistress."

"Come with me, Sukeena."

She led the girl to her closet, and seated herself on the chaise-longue in front of the shuttered window. She gestured for Sukeena to stand before her. "Governor Kleinhans often discussed your skills as a physician," Katinka said. "Who taught you?"

"My mother was an adept. At a very young age I would go out with her to gather the plants and herbs. After her death I studied with my uncle."

"Do you know the plants here? Are they not different from those of the land where you were born?"

"There are some that are the same, and the others I have taught myself."

Katinka already knew all this from Kleinhans, but she enjoyed the music of the slave girl's voice. "Sukeena, yesterday my mare stumbled and almost threw me. My leg was caught on the saddle horn, and I have an ugly mark. My skin bruises easily. Do you have in your chest of medicines one that will heal it for me?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Here!" Katinka leaned back on the sofa, and drew her skirts high above her knees. Slowly and sensually she rolled down one of the white stockings. "Look!" she ordered, and Sukeena sank gracefully to the silk carpet in front of her. Her touch was as soft upon the skin as a butterfly alighting on a flower, and Katinka sighed. "I can feel that you have healing hands."

Sukeena did not reply and a wave of her dark hair hid her eyes.

"How old are you?" Katinka asked.

Sukeena's fingers stopped for an instant and then moved on to explore the bruise that spread around the back of her mistress's knee. "I was born in the year of the Tiger," she said, "so on my next birthday I will be eighteen years of age.-) "You are very beautiful, Sukeena. But, then, you know that, don't you?"

"I do not feel beautiful, mistress. I do not think a slave can ever feel beautiful."

"What a droll notion." Katinka did not hide her annoyance at this turn in the conversation. "Tell me, is your brother as beautiful as you are?"

Again Sukeena's fingers trembled on her skin. Ah! That shaft went home. Katinka smiled softly in the silence, and then asked, "Did you hear my question, Sukeena?"

"To me Althuda is the most beautiful man who has ever lived upon this earth," Sukeena replied softly, and then regretted having said it.

She knew instinctively that it was dangerous to allow this woman to discover those areas where she was most vulnerable, but she could not recall the words.

"How old is Althuda?"

"He is three years older than I am." Sukeena kept her eyes downcast. "I need to fetch my medicines, mistress."

"I shall wait for you to return," Katinka replied. "Be quick."

Katinka lay back against the cushions and smiled or frowned at the vivid procession of images and words that ran through her mind. She felt expectant and elated, and at the same time restless and dissatisfied. Slow John's words sounded in her head like cathedral bells. They disturbed her. She could not remain still a moment longer. She sprang to her feet and prowled around the closet like a hunting leopard. "Where is that girl?" she demanded, and then she glimpsed her own reflection in the long mirror and turned back to consider it.