Melome

Начало книги

Dumarest heard the scream of a tortured child and turned, eyes searching, relaxing as it came again and he recognized the source. A hundred yards to his right, raised high above the decorated surface of the boulevard, a painted crone lolled on a gilded throne standing on a platform of massive timbers supported by a dozen stalwarts. They, in turn, stood on another platform, larger, borne by twice their number. Overseers lashed them on with whips which left carmine streaks on naked, sweating flesh.

A show as false as the screams; a mature beauty lay beneath the masking paint and the massive timbers were thin cladding over buoyant rafts. Props for the actors demonstrating their skills; the grimaces, the fatigue, the grunts of pain. The whips were thin tubes containing dye but the men wielding them were clever as was the woman with her screams.

She shrieked again as Dumarest watched, the cry now accompanied by the clash of beaten metal, the harsh tintinnabulation prolonged by the chime of tiny bells. A score of girls ran from the shelter of the lower platform, weaving among the spectators, one coming to a halt before Dumarest.

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