Hoffmann: переводы

→—THE KINDLY MAN and THE WAIF, servants of the Many-Faced

→—LORD PAXTER REDWYNE, grand admiral and master of ships,

→—her eldest daughter, {FALYSE}, died screaming in the black cells,

→—SEPTA UNELLA, SEPTA MOELLE, SEPTA SCOLERA, the queen’s gaolers,

→—Queen Cersei’s chief accuser,

→“No,” said Selmy. “I’ll do it,” offered Ser Archibald, “just so long as there’s no bloody boats involved. Drink will do it too.” He grinned. “He don’t know it yet, but he will.”

→“We chanced upon some Brazen Beasts and Meris asked them prettily. But a prince should know better than to pose such questions, Dornish. In Pentos, we have a saying. Never ask the baker what went into the pie. Just eat.”

→Of special note were the sons of men of renown. Tormund took care to point them out as they went by. “The boy there is the son of Soren Shieldbreaker,” he said of one tall lad. “Him with the red hair, he’s Gerrick Kingsblood’s get. Comes o’ the line o’ Raymun Redbeard, to hear him tell it. The line o’ Redbeard’s little brother, you want it true.” Two boys looked enough alike to be twins, but Tormund insisted they were cousins, born a year apart. “One was sired by Harle the Huntsman, t’other by Harle the Handsome, both on the same woman. Fathers hate each other. I was you, I’d send one to Eastwatch and t’other to your Shadow Tower.”

→“Keep it so.” It was not unknown for Ser Barristan to walk around at night, to make certain the pyramid was secure.

→Val patted the long bone knife on her hip. “Lord Crow is welcome to steal into my bed any night he dares. Once he’s been gelded, keeping those vows will come much easier for him.”

→The old gods must wish us well. Grunt had no tongue and Sour Alyn had no wits, Lord Ramsay liked to say. One was brutal, the other mean, but both had spent most of their lives in service at the Dreadfort. They did as they were told.

→The fish course was next, but as the pike was being boned Lady Alys dragged the Magnar up onto the floor. From the way he moved it was plain that Sigorn had never danced before, but he had drunk enough mulled wine so that it did not seem to matter.

→“I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but it seems to me that we want them to be treacherous. Once, you’ll recall, I convinced the Second Sons and Stormcrows to join us.”

→Behind her Grimtongue shouted, “Nine, and damn you all.” Hagen’s daughter burst naked from beneath the trees with two wolves at her heels. Asha wrenched loose a throwing axe and sent it flying end over end to take one of them in the back. When he fell, Hagen’s daughter stumbled to her knees, snatched up his sword, stabbed the second man, then rose again, smeared with blood and mud, her long red hair unbound, and plunged into the fight.

→That evening, after supper and a short session of the lying game, the blind girl tied a strip of rag around her head to hide her useless eyes, found her begging bowl, and asked the waif to help her don Beth’s face. The waif had shaved her head for her when they took her eyes; a mummer’s cut, she called it, since many mummers did the same so their wigs might fit them better. But it worked for beggars too and helped to keep their heads free from fleas and lice. More than a wig was needed, though. “I could cover you with weeping sores,” the waif said, “but then innkeeps and taverners would chase you from their doors.” Instead she gave her pox scars and a mummer’s mole on one cheek with a dark hair growing from it. “Is it ugly?” the blind girl asked.

→“Getting a splinter through your eye and dying.”

→The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. Shimmers of heat traced patterns on her skin, insistent as a lover’s hand. Strange voices called to her from days long past. “Melony,” she heard a woman cry. A man’s voice called, “Lot Seven.” She was weeping, and her tears were flame. And still she drank it in.

→The first man to come at Asha Greyjoy died at her feet with her throwing axe between his eyes. That gave her respite enough to slip her shield onto her arm. “To me!” she called, but whether she was calling to her own men or the foes even Asha could not have said for certain. A northman with an axe loomed up before her, swinging with both hands as he howled in wordless fury. Asha raised her shield to block his blow, then shoved in close to gut him with her dirk. His howling took on a different tone as he fell. She spun and found another wolf behind her, and slashed him across the brow beneath his helm. His own cut caught her below the breast, but her mail turned it, so she drove the point of her dirk into his throat and left him to drown in his own blood. A hand seized her hair, but short as it was he could not get a good enough grip to wrench her head back. Asha slammed her boot heel down onto his instep and wrenched loose when he cried out in pain. By the time she turned the man was down and dying, still clutching a handful of her hair. Qarl stood over him, with his long-sword dripping and moonlight shining in his eyes.

→“He was a king during the Age of Heroes.” She recalled that much about him, but little else. “What of him?”

→He is not hard to look at, Dany told herself, and he has a king’s tongue. “Kiss me,” she commanded.