Читать «Rulers of the Darkness (хвв-4)» онлайн - страница 83

Slowly, deliberately, the constabulary captain cut a slice from the leg of mutton and set the meat on his plate. He took a bite, chewed with appetite, and swallowed. Then he looked up. His blue eyes, mild and frank, met Talsu's. "Would you… like to join me for supper?" he asked.

"Aye!" The word was out of Talsu's mouth before he could call it back. He wished he hadn't said it, but the constable would have known he was thinking it even so.

"Pour him some more wine," the captain said. As the guard obeyed, the officer helped himself to green beans, ate an olive and spat the pit into the wastepaper basket, and tore off a chunk of that lovely white loaf and spread butter over it. He smiled at Talsu. "It's all very good."

Talsu didn't dare speak. He also didn't dare hurl himself at the food on the constabulary captain's desk without permission. No matter how hungry he was, he feared what the guards would do to him. But he had permission to drink the wine. After the stale, musty water he'd been getting, how fine it tasted!

Half starved as he was, it mounted straight to his head. Back in Skrunda, a couple of glasses of wine wouldn't have mattered much. Back in Skrunda, though, he would have had enough to eat; he wouldn't have poured them down on an empty, an ever so empty, stomach.

"Now then," the constabulary captain said, "suppose you tell me the names of the others who conspired with you against King Mainardo back in Skrunda." He took another bite of pink, juicy mutton. "If you want us to cooperate with you, after all, you have to cooperate with us, my friend." He swallowed the bite. He'd never missed a meal. Constabulary captains never did.

"Cooperate." Talsu could hear how his own voice slurred. Instead of naming names, he said what was uppermost in his mind: "Feed me!"

"All in good time, my friend; all in good time." The constable took a bit of bread. Butter left his lips greasy, shiny, till he gently blotted them on a snowy linen napkin. At his gesture, the guard put an identical napkin on Talsu's lap. Then the fellow poured Talsu's wineglass full once more.

"I don't want…" But Talsu couldn't say that. He couldn't come close to saying that. He did want the wine. He wanted it with all his soul. Even it made him feel less empty inside. He drank quickly, fearful lest the guard snatch the glass from his hand. When the glass was empty again, he stared owlishly at the food.

"It's very good," the constabulary captain remarked. "Tell us a few names. What's so hard about that? Once you've done it, you can eat your fill."

"Feed me first," Talsu whispered. It wasn't bargaining. At least, he didn't think of it as bargaining. It was much more like pleading.

The captain nodded to the guard. But it wasn't the sort of nod Talsu had hoped for. The guard slapped him again, hard enough to make his head ring. He dropped the wineglass. It fell on the floor and broke. "You don't tell us what to do," the captain said in a voice like iron. "We tell you what to do. Have you got that?" The guard belted him again.