Читать «Rulers of the Darkness (хвв-4)» онлайн - страница 34

Before he had to find an answer, someone from farther up the street- someone behind the constables now, someone they couldn't see- cried out, "Aye, bugger off!"

Again, the Algarvians spun. Again, they hurried past Ealstan. Again, they seized no one, for more insults rained down on them whenever they turned their backs. Algarvians often had tempers that burst like eggs. These redheads proved no exception. One of them shook his fist and shouted in pretty fluent Forthwegian: "You fornicating bigmouths, you yell much more, we treat you all like stinking Kaunians!" To leave no doubt about what he meant, his partner stuck his chin in the air and drew a forefinger across his throat.

"Shame!" Ealstan yelled. That might have got him into trouble, but other Forthwegians were also yelling, and yelling worse things. As Ealstan knew too well, most of them cared little about what happened to the Kaunian minority in Forthweg, but they all cared about what happened to them.

The constable who'd shouted the threat was the one who'd taken the stick off his belt. Cursing now in his own language, he blazed between a couple of Forthwegians standing not far from him. His beam missed them both, but bit into the wooden wall of the wineshop behind them. The wall began to smolder. The Forthwegians fled.

So did everyone else on the street. Ealstan wasted no time ducking around the first corner he came to. He kept on running after that, too, the hem of his long wool tunic flapping just below his knees. "Those bastards have gone daft!" another man making himself scarce said.

"What's daft about it?" Ealstan returned bitterly. "They probably get a bonus for anybody they blaze."

When the other fellow didn't argue with him, he decided he'd made his point. Having made it, he went right on trotting. He didn't know whether a new round of rioting was about to flare up in Eoforwic, and didn't care to stay around to find out. That was the trouble with people feeling feisty: no matter how much trouble they stirred up, they still couldn't get rid of the Algarvians.

"One of these days, though," Ealstan murmured. "Aye, one of these days…" He heard the longing in his own voice. Mezentio's men had been sitting on Forthweg for three and a half years now. He smiled when he passed another scribbled SULINGEN. Surely they couldn't hold down his kingdom forever.

His own block of flats lay in a poor part of town, one already scarred again and again by rioting. He wouldn't have minded seeing another round of that if it meant throwing Mezentio's men out of Eoforwic. Since he didn't think it would, he was glad things seemed quiet.