Текст книги "Eric (СИ)"

Автор книги: Марина Шпак

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The next few days he kept the chosen mode of visiting noble encounters and remained absolutely calm, at least outwardly. Meanwhile, the agent network began to eat denarii and give its results. By the end of the week, by joint efforts, about three hundred people gathered information for him, most of them, however, were children. The tasks that were put before the agent network were somewhat vague and rather complicated – it was necessary to take control of all key players in the political arena of Venice and keep them under round the clock surveillance. In addition, the hand on the pulse in the criminal world was kept, and all more or less suspicious visitors were noted. As soon as the network began to operate the information went a very solid stream, from which, frankly, he had already lost the habit. I hastily started a kind of diary. For the first time he bought himself two clean scrolls of parchment, well, not quite clean, but cleaned. But it was not an option. It was very inconvenient to mess with this resource. It was necessary to urgently seek a way out. It was dangerous to make paper, as this would add suspicion. After suffering a little, he stopped on a thin fabric of bleached flax, which he cut into neat rectangles, and, at the time of writing, he inserted into simple homemade embroidery hoops made of wood. The size of the sheets was about 20 by 30 centimeters. I cut it myself, by measure, so that the sheets were almost identical. The edges of these improvised sheets were neatly sutured, in order to prevent their dissolution. He entrusted this fascinating business to the Drevlyanin, so as not to distract the others, loaded with agency work, subordinates. The organization of the disparate sheets of cloth he decided quite simply – numbering them and sewing twenty sheets in one notebook. For page numbering (and generally recording of digital information), he used a visually undeformed form of recording in the form of simple geometric figures expressing the decimal system, and the records themselves were in modern Russian. By these means he quite reliably saved from reading these texts his current contemporaries in case of theft or forcible seizure during a search. By the end of the second month he already had about one hundred and fifty carefully printed sheets with information and a fairly clear understanding of the situation. It all began with that strange precedent in Vienna, when he shot French knights. Before their suzerain, this information came through the Duke of Austria in the process of dismantling. Of course – this is the king interested, because the situation was quite unusual. In general, he sent his spies to Eric to find out what was what, and then decided to see what kind of person he was, the painfully ambiguous data was coming. I needed a provocation, but one that would be difficult to ignore. That's why on the scene appeared Baudouin, who was previously a very literate and completely uninformative performer. He was processed, inspired by some greatness, and then allocated Gaspar, who, incidentally, was the perfect pawn in that game. In general, Jean is dying. Duke, realizing that an interesting game had begun, puts his best spies on watch for von Lenzburg, who almost held him in an embrace with the people of Philip kept him under the hood. These crooked European rulers were expecting different surprises, but he was able to exceed all their expectations and made a furor. You just imagine – he sits at home, does nothing, sometimes pushes at the forge of the pear, sometimes he walks the market. And then suddenly Gaspard disappears in the evening, and next morning they find the corpse of Morel with a very beautiful dramatization. At the same time – none, absolutely no trace or thread to Eric was found, but to all interested persons it was clear that it was he who did it. And now, behind the baron, three curious glances are closely watched: the King of France Philip II Augustus, the Duke of Austria Frederick I Banberg and the Grand Master of the Knights Templar Order – Gilbert Eral. Not the most pleasant news. Although they were compensated for by the complete failure of their agents, since our cunning man had already figured out all the hunters, tracked them down and kept them under control, that is, all the information that came from them to the employers was known to him, too. A good trump card in the game. Yes, the picture of the personalities cleared up, it became clear who he was interested in. It is much more difficult to find out what. For these tasks, there must be someone from the house, for example Philippe, someone who is trusted, as with conventional agents this task could not be solved. Of the existing personalities of great interest was the same Thibaut III Champagne and his son-in-law Baldwin I of Flanders, since they had a direct relationship to the now reigning house in France. This caused a change in instructions for intelligence activities, and therefore, after two weeks, Eric paced next to the desk and pondered a further plan of action.

Yes – these guys, of course, owned the information. And the interest of all three stakeholders is the same, well, or about the same. And even if it is not so, then having received information about the interests of at least one of the parties, will rely on that for further investigation. The only point of entry into this isolated couple of informers was the wife of Baldwin and the daughter of Thibaut – Maria Champagne, a very colorful and sweet nature for 25 years. After some thought, he, nevertheless, decided to bet on her, and therefore the next two weeks, all the forces of the agency were directed to clarify all the details about Masha, absolutely everyone, even very piquant. The task was not difficult, because the lady was well known and kept in sight. Little of this, our girl turned out to be a man with a subtle spiritual organization – a poetess. Conversations about beauty, literature and poetry were for her like air, but, alas, the husband could not give them to her. Equal and father – they were both representatives of their time – strong, strong, showy and not very clever butchers. Married when she was 12, Maria was not happy. And after she gave birth to two girls, and her husband cooled to her, disbelieving that she was capable of giving birth to his son, completely lost heart. And it was a kind of parody of a decadence character. As for the direct predilections of the physiological plan, the spouses were never delighted with the choice of their parents and tolerated each other out of necessity. Therefore, for the last 5 years she had no affinity with a man, from which she was terribly racked and forced to direct all unclaimed sexual energy into the channel of sublimation. In this case it was poetry, and indeed any fine art. Purely visually the lady was pretty compact, with a sweet, spiritualized face and in a neat figure that almost did not deteriorate after giving birth. So – the information is collected, the goal is set, the tasks are defined, the resources are clear and accessible. Therefore, on December 7, 1198, when he was at the next reception in the house, which Thibaut rented, he decided to catch her on bait. It took quite a while to search for the cause, as the conversations were all about a major military campaign, which was being prepared in the next few years. The case turned out completely unexpectedly. Pierre noticed a small scroll of parchment in her belt and decided to joke about a businesslike wife who responsibly treated the duties of her husband's secretary. But that scroll was a record of several of her poems, and therefore de Chamon had, out of politeness, to ask them to read. Then a small discussion ensued on the complete uselessness of poetry, where it was called an empty and muddled business. But at the very end, when smug muzhiks and a sad lady, were already ready to move on to another topic, Erik got in. And very original – he began to recite from memory Odysseus, who, in his time, learned the first song. Of course – recited in ancient Greek, which no one knew, but because they listened to the melody of the text. Fragments of phrases were understood only by Pierre, who tolerantly spoke in Byzantine. He recited beautifully, for chanting, with the correct longitude of sounds and intonation, and therefore already on the second verse all cute shut up and began to listen. When he had finished, there was a pause and only a minute later Maria asked, slightly agitated: "What was that? " In general – the rest of the evening they talked about this poem, about heroes, mythical creatures and so on. Eric managed to convince all those present that poetry is not simple chatter, it allows people to remember heroic deeds and carry them through many centuries. In general, another stupid meeting about "who they are where and how" our baron turned into a small discussion club and achieved his goal – he drew attention to and expressed interest in further communication with the one whose attention he was looking for. Bingo! The goal is struck from the first call.

Such a bold and successful maneuver could not avoid close attention, it was too unusual. So, a couple of days later, Pierre somehow accidentally decided to probe him a little. He did not know that the legend and the move itself had been thought out beforehand, and so Eric quite calmly reacted to the tricky question and gave out to him quite a slender legend about how he beat off the old hooligans who was a wandering musician. The payment for food, shelter, treatment and protection offered a variety of rare songs and interesting stories. Alas, he would have learned more, but in the spring the old man said goodbye, thanked for help and went on traveling further. In general, de Chamond was satisfied with the answer, since there were quite a lot of such strange old people in Europe at that time. But back to our Mary. Another couple of meetings and conversations have finished her completely, for her our baron became something of an idol, who was allowed to do with her whatever he wanted. So many years of complete misunderstanding from men and suddenly such a bright and striking phenomenon. In order to move on to the next stage of subordination, it was necessary to resolve the issue of hygiene, which was traditionally launched. Here it should be said that this situation with body care was stimulated by the Roman Catholic Church with all its might. It reached a completely incomprehensible delirium, for example, washing more than twice a year was considered a sin and no small. But in this case, the lady's will was akin to a plasticine, and therefore a couple of stories related to the wash, told with some erotic overtones, did their job. And so, on December 18, 1198, at another meeting with Maria, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the voice of reason is not alien to her, and she not only washed herself of all kinds of filth, but also put on fresh, clean clothes. The smell from her sharply became much more pleasant, and so he did not pull and on the same day they retired for a more intimate conversation about modern poetry. Strange they turned out a couple of lovers – an adult woman of 24 years and a young guy of 16 years. But for all her strangeness, after a month Eric had all the information about the Capetians' house, because through her fragile hands there was all the correspondence of her father and her husband. And now, far from their native possessions, this gave a lot of useful information. As for Philip's interests, everything turned out to be quite primitive, and to the point of ridiculous. It turns out that he was interested in the one in whose interests our baron acts. Our gallant king somehow decided that they were digging under him, wishing to destroy the influence in southern Germany and northern Italy. Stupid, stupid and not professional. Such a volume of the most curious information and such an indistinct conclusion! Apparently our hero overestimated the analytical abilities of the "big brother", which he decided to follow. Too primitive, we need to double-check, since they can deliberately disinform it, noticing, through whom he decided to probes them.

The first days of March of 1199 were in progress. The novel with Maria received a small extension in the form of her pregnancy. Therefore, it was necessary to do something in order to avoid scandal. After thinking over the situation with the lady, they decided to provoke her husband, so that he had to return to his direct duties. So the next two weeks Eric at general meetings played a trick on Baldwin in such a way that there was nothing to answer. At the same time, the young baron was only retelling rumors that the servants were dismissing that this or that servant had suffered from the count. But he did not just retell, but reworked literally, adding tales of reluctance to have normal children, because of greed, since if he has new daughters, the amount of the necessary dowry will greatly increase. Well, all in that vein. These rude jokes with the implication of Thibaut were perceived as helping his own daughter, who, using her good attitude to the young baron, asked him to help. At least, that was the legend that was poured out to Maria's father. He also took a lively part in the fate of his daughter, and therefore supported the jokes of Eric and was amply rejoiced. In general, after two weeks of methodical dumb and jokes, Baldwin could not stand and visited his wife's bedroom in the evening. And anyway, I began to do it from time to time, because he liked a well-groomed, pleasantly smelling woman, even if not in his taste. And the affairs of our hero in Venice were finally settled. The information was confirmed, and in the house of the Banks, it turned out to be the same. The latter he learned again through his mistress, through whose hands passed a curious letter, in which the duke was interested in Tibo success in preparing the campaign and, as if by accident, asked about what forces on the campaign is ready to put the suzerain Eric. In general – a kindergarten, pants on the straps. So, having said goodbye to Maria, he arranged with Pierre and, on March 22, on his birthday, departed Venice to the island of Corfu. Where I wanted to stay for a while.

Chapter 4

Sail on the Adriatic Sea was on a very poor pelvis, which was an early form of the nave. The ship was absolutely clumsy and very wobbly on the wave, evoking memories of the once-received unforgettable sensations during a walk in tow on the high seas. Fortunately, our hero did not have seasickness, and he just quietly left in the sediment from his vehicle. Long it was 25 meters, width of 7 meters, the draft was unclear to him, but it was as if a large, surface board towered a meter and a half to two meters high. The speed was such that Eric wanted to jump into the water and push this awkward trough. Fortunately, apart from the crew of the people there was not much, and therefore it was possible to lie down all those almost six days that they sailed to the island of Corfu. When the port of Kerkyra appeared on the horizon, our baron simply had an itch at his feet, so he rushed to rush along the deck, worried that they were sailing so slowly. His problem was solved by Morrigan, having planted on a barrel and having started to massage a neck and shoulders. The massage was very beneficial, and he calmed down.

On the shore, they did not expect anything special – an ordinary medieval town, moreover poor. The only serious visual difference from Vienna and Venice was in the style of architecture. Unfortunately, the ship did not go any further and after the unloading was returning, so it was necessary to wait another couple of weeks for another loch, which should come from Athens. We went around a couple of inns – full of horror. I had to rent a small house to fit comfortably. So it was led, but the requirements to the level of housing he had very solid – everything should be modest, but clean, sound and accurate. For that period, it was available only at the expense of their own efforts. Therefore, the first two days were spent on cleaning up a muddy house and establishing a normal comfort zone there. The ruins of ancient buildings were covered with earth and garbage, there were no sights in the city, except for the churches. But they already tired of him, after a long life in Vienna and Venice. In general, soon the fighting, and solid, so that he spent the remaining time preparing the guys. Of course, he did not have much of them, but this is already a combat detachment, which for efficiency of efficiency should work together. In addition to the girls in his squad were Ostroneg, Valentino, Vincento, Rudolph with his son George and Antonio. The simplest drill training, combat training in a circular defense, well-coordinated shooting from crossbows and so on. Of course, pulling up for such a time does not work, but it was necessary to begin. The work quickly flew by, but, alas, after two weeks, the ship from Athens did not arrive. By the end of the third week, another one had come from Cyprus and had brought a few sailors that he had picked up in the sea at the site of the shipwreck. Well, and at the same time it turned out that the expected pelvis will not be, as it is on the bottom. Uncertainty is not at all pleasing, and therefore it was decided to contact your favorite bank and find out when they will send the next transport, but already to Athens. Pierre responded fairly quickly – his answer came about two weeks later. News was not encouraging – the ship was scheduled only in the early days of May. To engage in monotonous and tiresome training was not a desire, especially since Rudolph himself could drive the guys. So he decided to take a little distraction and went on a small horse ride with Morrigan to the mountain ridge that was going on in the northern part of the island. Less daylight, but still nice.

In the evening there was a small picnic in the mountains, Eric decided to remember his forever lost world, and therefore prepared a little shish kebab. He still picked it up from last night in Kerkyra and in this form and drove all the way. There was no press, so I had to use the skin, in which everything was laid and tightened to a good fit. For the marinade he used red wine, salt and onions. Pepper, unfortunately, was not, as spices in Europe are worth their weight in gold and only very few kings can afford them. In general, we sat well. They ate, drank a little, and he began to talk about the ancient world, about the great empires and mighty heroes. She fell asleep much earlier than he stopped telling, noticing her sleepy snuff. And he still sat – eating up the remaining meat and sighing about how he misses at his dinner tomatoes with potatoes. In the morning they gathered unhurriedly and decided to move back, as the relaxed state of our baron began to depress. Already before they left, they saw a small, barely noticeable path leading somewhere to the mountains. Well, for the unknown – a path in the mountains? But his curiosity attracted to see where the path leads high in the mountains and away from people. He left the Morrigan to pack things, and, having adjusted his armor, went to explore what was there and what. After a couple of miles of an improvised game in a mountain goat, he stumbled upon a neat entrance to the cave. He opened his sword and went in. Strange place – like, a cave is wild at all, and there are traces of people – there, on the walls, torches that were extinct not so long ago. After a couple of hundred steps along the winding canal, he went into the great hall, where a small temple was built. Something in the spirit of the ancient Greek cults. There were values, but heavy. So he turned and quickly went back. To return him, the girl has almost prepared everything.

" Listen, download now to Corfu, take Rudolph with the guys, pair a clockwork horse for each and drive here. "Antonio leave in the city, he has not woken up from his wounds, let the property guard.

"I do not like all this. "

It does not matter! Now the main thing is to act quickly. Oh, yes, I'll take some food, because you'll have to sit here for two days. Do you understand everything?

– Yes, I understood everything clearly.

"Fine, now drive, do not waste precious time. "

The girl reluctantly finished assembling, mounted, he hooked her to her and the horses, and then she turned around and began to slowly retire, descending the mountain road. And the baron himself, collecting a little brushwood and taking the provisions, went back to the cave – it had to be inspected.

First you had to solve the problem with lighting, it's completely inconvenient to walk in the shadows, when you see only silhouettes. The fact is that the inner main hall was with a huge vault, which at the very top cut through cracks, in places through. Through them, and then came the crumbs of light, and there was little ventilation. The airing of the room, he realized, was organized so that through a slightly cracked arch the air went out, and through the entrance to the cave – came in. That is, if you build a fire inside the hall, it will speed up the passage of airflow, due to the accelerated rise of heated air and improve the ventilation of the room. After figuring out what was happening in that room, he collected some brushwood in the vicinity of the cave and prepared a bonfire, which he could only light. Nearby, he neatly folded more fuel, which should be enough for a couple of days of maintaining the fire. After that, I borrowed a couple of torches in the aisle and began to inspect the whole complex. It turned out that in addition to the hall, in the center of which stood a large marble statue of Artemis about 4 meters high, there are about ten more carved in the rock rooms, in which various property was stored. Basically, of course, household items and food stocks in the form of grain, olive oil and wine. Of the valuable things – only antique handicrafts, mostly marble and bronze. Now they are not at all in price, but then – they will be completely. The most interesting place was the last room, which was located just behind the grandiose statue. It was much more spacious than the others. In this small hall a kind of non-static pantry of a completely unique kind was made-the marble and bronze statues of the various gods of the ancient Olympus stood mixed with various household things and military gear of different eras. A lot of equipment lay in bulk and badly deteriorated from time to time, coming to a completely unconditioned state, but part was in deep oil preservation. For example, perfectly preserved Lorica segmentals from the heyday of the Roman Empire were exactly the same and preserved. The most wounded were chain mail. Especially it should be mentioned about a certain amount of bronze armor in a completely tolerable condition. For him, as an experienced historian, all these things were like balm to the soul, and indeed the whole of this era: he studied for so many years, and then everything can be touched alive. So he wandered, examined and evaluated everything that is valuable and where it can be applied. The day passed imperceptibly, and it began to get dark. He had to light a fire and begin to prepare for bed. There was only one question – the question of unexpected guests, since here, obviously, one of the people regularly put his hand, watching as the preservation of the armor, and for everything else. We needed an alarm system. There were no other entrances to the underground temple, so at some distance from each other he made stretches of woolen thread, on which hung a small bundle of pieces of iron. It was not very strong, but if you sleep sensitively, you can notice.

He lay down to sleep, not taking off his armor, as one could expect anything. In a strong and deep sleep, he was prevented from falling through the feeling of tension that had seized him since the moment Morrigan left. And so, closer to the morning, one of the long stretch marks worked. He woke up instantly, but did not flinch and listened. A couple of minutes later the next stretch worked and a hushed whisper was heard, apparently uninvited guests remembered not the most courtly words in their language. He rose as quietly and neatly as possible, took the sciavon out of its scabbard and walked away from the burning fire to the nearest room so as to be out of sight and have, in case of anything, the opportunity to rush to the aisle and break out at the shortest distance. Five entered the room. Ahead was a slender but strong girl, behind her four men, a column in twos. All are armed with short spears. Behind the men are some stuffed bags. The body of the whole company covers only simple woolen clothes. Eric almost howled because he forgot to hurry in a hurry with a crossbow, which now lay in the bag next to the fire. Well at least it was not loaded, and the bolts lay separately in the bag. He terribly spoiled the situation, as he was the only weapon for the next few kilometers, which could easily finish him off. The guests stopped near the fire. The men immediately turned their backs on her and, with their spears in front of him, became an improvised semicircle, protecting her back and sides. The girl slowly slowed the tip of the spear and began to look around and listen. For some reason, she did not pay attention to the crossbow. Minutes of silence stretched slowly, so slowly and tensely that the men accompanying her all over the body sweated profusely, and her fingers a little whitened from the strength with which they squeezed the shaft. But in the eighth minute the girl could not stand it and loudly cried in Byzantine:

– Who are you? – And silence. The Baron was not going to be so easy on her trick. He, of course, is in fine armor and in good shape, but there are five of them and it is still unknown how many of them are outside.

" I know that you are here! "Come out and introduce yourself. If you are not our enemy, I promise – we will not attack. – And again there is silence. After all, who knows who they consider an enemy?

Ok. I understand what you think. So I will introduce myself.

– Light! Do not risk so, suddenly this is one of those who forced us to hide here.

" Then he will die. "But before he dies he finds out from whose hand. I am Demeter – the priestess of this ancient temple. – And again there is silence. Our hero only smiled a little. He began to like this game.

" You show disrespect in our land! "Teleph – start looking for our guest. – After these words, the men accompanying her began to disperse and look around. Like herself. Fortunately, she completely alone went to the right baron's room. Her eyes a little povyvikli from the darkness because of being at the fire, but because she saw it very badly. Entering the room, she did not see the dark mass of his armor from two paces. True, he himself successfully stood up – in the darkest corner of the room, but notice, if the eye is accustomed to the dark, you can. She took another step forward and heard a slight noise on the right. Of course, she turned to the irritant and immediately fell into the embrace of our hero, who took her left hand with her waist, and the right one clamped her mouth, and then pressed her to him. Poor girl, from the surprise and completely strange sensations, she was so scared that she could not hold her bladder out. And what do you want? You go into a dark room, and then you, absolutely noiselessly, have something very hard and cold. So our poor fellow not only dropped his spear and lost the gift of speech, but also, with a slight twitching of his whole body, made a byaku. And after it has softened and has lost consciousness. The sounds that accompanied all this action did not cause any reaction from the accompanying men. Therefore, Eric was carte blanche for action. Going out to fight with them is unreasonable, even if he kills them all, he will be of no use to this. They need him as subordinates, and not as corpses. And to kill, judging by our ward, he always can. Therefore, after waiting for the guys to move away, he clamped the fingers of his nose, which was limp on his hands, that caused a rather quick reaction to the sharp inhalation of the mouth and the coming to consciousness. He did not give a shout to her, clutching his mouth with his hand, whispered in his ear:

" You can make a sound without permission, and I'll cut your head off. "Understood or not, I do not ask – I warn. Due to the fact that you, rubbish, maloholnaya, pissed off my legs, I'm very angry, so do not even hope for indulgence. I will cut it off and say that it was.

Then he pressed the blade of the devil to her throat and began to slowly move out into the light. Near the campfire, he hailed these griefs – bodyguards, calling for help with a rather sophisticated fantasy in terms of their sexual orientation.

It took only a few minutes and the situation changed dramatically. Instead of a brazen and self-assured lady with bodyguards, there were four frightened men and a girl in the hall, Erik was holding on his knees, in front of him, holding his hair wound around his left arm. In his right hand he held the devil.

" So you gathered here today to please me with a small and curious narrative. "First you say, then you, further you and at the very end you.

"Sir, let our hostess tell everything. "

– I'll decide what's best. – He pulled the girl by the hair up, from which she squeaked. – And if you want to solve everything by the world, then you will be a model of humility and obedience. Do I make myself clear?

"Yes, sir, it's very clear. "

– My name is Telef, my father's name was

In general, each of them briefly and in detail told the story of his life, what he knows and how he turned out to be in an underground cult. It turns out that in Kerkir, since the time of Constantine, a social group has survived, which decided not to abandon the ancient cult. Every year this community faded, losing its representatives. And now, those who were in the cave represented the whole cult – the last family. These guys were the girl's brothers, and their parents were killed recently during the robbery. The robbers attacked, because these overgrown people lit up some valuable cult property. The family was quite prosperous, but not enough to have protection. The well-being of the parents allowed the children not to bother with military exercises or other useful things, but simply idle. Of all of them, only the girl was able to read and write in Byzantine and had insignificant knowledge of astronomy and astrology.