The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [116]
"It looks like he had recognized these guys, too, gave up and tiptoed away."
"That's what a professional would do," nodded Almandin, "but the baron will do something else entirely… want to bet?"
"Wait a moment!" the Vice-Director of Operations glanced at his chief in surprise. "Do you consider Tangorn to be a dilettante, then?"
"Not a dilettante, my dear Jacuzzi, but an amateur. Do you understand the difference?"
"To be honest – no, not quite."
"A professional is not the person who's mastered all the techniques of his craft – the baron has no problems in this regard – but the one who always delivers on his orders, regardless of the circumstances. It so happens that the baron had never worked for hire; he is bound by neither oath nor umberto and is used to the unbelievable luxury of doing only things he himself approves of. If an order contradicts his notions of honor or runs against his conscience, he will simply ignore it, and to hell with the consequences – both for himself and his goals. You can see that such a man belongs in a Vendotenian monastery, rather than in any intelligence service."
"I think I know what you mean," Jacuzzi nodded thoughtfully. "The baron lives in a world of moral scruples and stereotypes that are unthinkable to you and me… By the way, I was refreshing my memory of his dossier the other day and came across an interesting tidbit of friendly banter over a few drinks. Someone asked him whether he could hit a woman if he had to. He had spent some time seriously thinking about it, and then admitted that perhaps he'd be able to kill a woman, but never to hit one, under any circumstances. His dossier is anyway a rather curious read – it's more of a literary review than a dossier; about half of it is poems and translations. I even thought that no one outside of our Department has a more complete collection of Tangorn's takatos…"
"Too bad that they won't be published until a hundred twenty years from now under the declassification law… Aha! A gondola! So, would you like to bet that he's going to pull some crazy stunt and fool all of these guys?"
"I think that it would be more appropriate for us to pray for his Fortune, or rather Marandil's blunder…"
A small three-seater gondola touched shore at one of the stairways descending to the water to take on a gentleman in a scarlet cape and a hat with black plumage, and started to cross the lake leisurely. Suddenly a sleepy expression appeared on Jacuzzi's face; he unhurriedly took out a gold-plated sandalwood pencil, wrote a few words on a napkin, turned it over and handed the pencil to Almandin, saying: "All right, it's a bet." The other man also wrote something on another napkin, and both returned to silently watching the developments.
The gondola described a not-quite-complete triangle and came back to the stair next to the one where it started. That spot was perennially occupied by a band of lepers, wrapped in head-to-toe striped robes, who solicited alms there. The so-called cold leprosy is both fatal and incurable, but unlike the 'hot leprosy' it is not particularly contagious (the only way to catch it is by squashing one of the many small boils covering the leper's face and hands, or by doing something like sharing his cup), so its sufferers were never expelled from human settlements. The Hakimians of Khand even considered them especially desired by God. Every day those mournful figures in their striped robes silently appealed to the citizens' mercy, as if inviting them to compare the lepers' plight to whatever they considered troublesome in their own lives. They were motionless to the point of appearing to be some architectural element like