The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [106]
Someone called him: "You're waiting for a lady, noble sir – buy her a flower!" Tangorn looked around leisurely, and his breath seized for a moment. It was not that the flower girl was beauty personified; rather, her little basket was full of purple-golden meotis orchids, exceedingly rare this time of year. Meotis was Alviss' favorite flower.
Chapter 40
All these days he had been putting off seeing her under various pretexts – "never revisit the places where you have been happy." Since she had so unerringly prophesized that he was going to war, a lot of time passed and a lot of blood was spilled. Neither one of them was what they had been, so why walk the ruins and engage in necromancy? As he had found out, Alviss was now a respectable dame: her brilliant intuition had helped her make a sizable fortune on the stock market. She did not seem to be married, but was either engaged or betrothed to one of the pillars of the local business establishment – what the hell would she need with a restless and dangerous ghost from her past? Now all these wonderful deep defense fortifications lay in ruins.
"How much for your flowers, pretty one? I mean the whole basket?"
The girl – she looked about thirteen – stared at Tangorn in amazement. "You must not be from around here, noble sir! These are real meotis, they're expensive."
"Yes, I know." He dug in his pocket and realized that he was out of silver. "Will a dungan be enough?"
Suddenly, her brilliant eyes lost all sparkle; bewilderment and fear flashed through them, replaced by tired disgust. "A gold coin for a basket of flowers is way too much, noble sir," she said quietly. "I understand… you will take me to your place?"
The baron was never overly sentimental, but now his heart lurched with pity and anger. "Stop it this second! Honestly, I only want the orchids. You haven't earned money this way before, right?"
She nodded and sniffed childishly. "A dungan is a lot of money for us, noble sir. Mama and sister and I can live for half a year on that."
"So take it and live on it," he grumbled, putting a golden disk bearing Sauron's profile in her hand. "And pray for my fortune, I'll need it real soon…"
"So you're a knight of Fortune, not a noble sir?" Now she was a wonderful blend of curiosity, childish excitement and fairly adult coquettishness. "I'd never guess!"
"Yeah, something like that," the baron grinned, picked up the meotis basket, and headed towards Jasper Street, followed by her silvery voice: "You will be fortunate, sir knight, believe me! I will pray with all my might, and I have a lucky touch, you'll see!"
Alviss' old housemaid Tina opened the door and reeled back as if she had seen a ghost. Aha, he thought, so my appearance is a real surprise and not everyone here will like it. With this thought he headed towards the living room and the sounds of music floating from there, leaving the old woman's sad dirges behind – Tina must have realized that this visit from the past was not going to end well… The company in the living room was small and very refined; the music, superbly performed, was Akvino's Third Sonata. At first, no one paid attention to the baron when he noiselessly appeared in the doorway, and he had a few moments to watch Alviss in her form-fitting dark blue dress from behind. Then she looked around, their eyes met, and Tangorn had two simultaneous thoughts, one stupider than the other: "Some women benefit from everything, even age" and "I wonder if she'll drop her goblet?"
She moved towards him very, very slowly, as if against resistance, obviously external one; it seemed to him that music was the culprit – it had turned the room into a mountain stream