Читать книгу Libertionne - Anna Tishchenko - Страница 7

In the car, the police officers offered to take Tiberius to the hospital, but he adamantly refused. Right now his mind was occupied by something else – how many years of compulsory vacation would the rescue of the young idiot cost him? Of course, this depended on the extent to which he overdid it with the two who maintained a suspicious silence in such uncomfortable positions on the asphalt. But even in the best case scenario (if they were alive) it would be slightly less than the great Merlin spent locked up in the enchanted cave. But Merlin had an indisputable advantage. First of all, he was a wizard and could probably have conjured up some kind of entertainment for himself, in order to speed up the two hundred and eight-six years, and secondly, he fell victim to this tragic situation due to the fault of the sorceress Nimueh. You could sympathize with him. But here! His thoughts on the topic of timeless examples of human stupidity were interrupted. The car stopped, and the policemen dropped off the dazed warrior of justice at the entryway of his own building. And they drove away, bidding him a good evening and a fast recovery. He stood there for a minute, slack-jawed, then shrugged and went up to his apartment.

As soon as he crossed the threshhold, Tiberius understood why men in the past century were not burning with the desire to be tied with the bonds of Hymenaeus. He didn’t even have time to switch on the light before the wall monitor lit up, and Laura unleashed all of her righteous anger on him:

“Why aren’t you answering your smartphone?!

“It broke,” Tiberius said, showing the empty strap on his wrist.

Laura didn’t let up.

“That’s not the main thing! How could you be so lacking in judgment…”

Not listening to her in the slightest, Tiberius shuffled off to look for the first-aid kit. Thanks to modern medicine, tomorrow he would almost look human again. But opening the syringe with the antibiotics proved to be not so simple. Every inch of his body hurt, and especially his head, and the reprimand from his boss did not bring him any peace and quiet. Especially torturous was the procedure for self-administered nose repair. Stealthily wiping away his unauthorized tears, Tiberius, trying to impart a lightness and effortlessness to his voice, asked,

“Do you want to go to the river? This week? We can take Michael as well. He needs to get away from his wards once in awhile; he hasn’t left the clinic for a month.”

She was not pleased by the sudden change in the topic of discussion, along with the fact that he totally ignored her remarks.

“Come on, that’s just ridiculous…”

She couldn’t have said anything worse. Tiberius, turning away so that she would not see his expression, quoted a long-forgotten line of verse:

“O enchanting one, evil one, can it be true

That you find humorous the holy word friend…”

“Tiberius, what are you doing, those are forbidden lines!” Laura cried, clearly frightened, and he saw her this way for the first time.

“On your moonlit body, you want only

To feel the touch of a woman’s hands?

You don’t need the contact of lips, passionate and shy

Or the gaze of eyes, do you?”

“You’re mad, that’s six months of jail time! Be quiet, I beg you!”

“She begs?” For this alone, six months is worth it. He went to the wash room, brushing his hand against the wall. Along its surface, beautified with “white heavens” (or “snow lilies”? ), bloody lines extended.

“Can it be that a murky vision has never

Haunted you in your childhood dreams?”

“You know the police are already coming.”

“The love of a man – Prometheus’s fire —

Makes demands, and, in demanding, gives…”

There was a sharp ring at the door. This was probably, really the police. Before he touched the door handle, Tiberius turned and looked Laura in the eye:

“Are you coming with me?”

“Yes!”

Satisfied, he nodded and opened the door.

“Good evening, sir. You have violated the law and you have to come with us.

“Only not now,” Tiberius smiled.

He turned once more to look at the monitor and suddenly felt an electric shock to the neck.