Young Doctor Eszterhazy
- Автор: Дэвидсон Аврам Джеймс
- Серия: Dr. Eszterhazy #10
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Детективная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Young Doctor Eszterhazy». Краткое содержание книги:
“Ho, ho. No, it is not Tokay, merely the same color; finish it before you tell me why you want my help. Go on now. Bottoms up!”
The Cornet perforce obeyed, but in some stiff sips rather than one main gulp. Breathing strongly, he wiped his mouth. “I want your help to rescue Count Calmar!”
General Abercrombie gestured that all drinking vessels be refilled. Next, that all drink again. Then he said, “Well, Cornet Um Ahh Um — Well, Cornet. I fear this does not come within the scope of my official duties, sorry as I am for the noble gentlemen, Count Who?”
The Cornet removed his pannikin from his mouth. “Your Excellency, but he is only the Count Calmar incognito! In actual fact, he is King Magnus of Scandia and Froreland!”
This was received with no reaction by the assembled rough riders, who continued to stroll to and from the bourbon barrel. But General Abercrombie, whose drinks were being brought to him, allowed a look of deep thought to steal over his face. “Well, this seems to put a different complexion on — A reigning monarch is no mere — ‘Scandia and Froreland,’ do you say? Yes. Yes? Why, the subjects of the King of Scandia and Froreland have in recent years been migrating very numerously to the United States. They are hard-working, hard-drinking, quick to become naturalized though very much attached to their old homeland; they vote dutifully in all elections and they are almost all of them attached to that same Grand Old Party which has saved the Union. Why —
” Something had occured to Major James Elphonsus Dandy. “Say. This here king. Hasn’t got yellow hair, has he?”
“Why yes. He has. Yes. He has.”
The major gave a satisfied jerk of the head. “Well. There yare. And, oh hey! Nother thing! Ain’t them two countries whut they call The Land of the Midnight Sun? Why sure! Just like old Roan Horse said, ‘The sun either won’t rise or won’t set,’ well! There y’are; git your carbines ready, men.”
Abercrombie leaned forward. “How do you know all this, my plumed, war-bonneted friend? And what else do you know about it?”
Roan Horse gave an enormous eructation. “Medicine Man send message. Not know what Medicine Man. He blow-em eagle whistle. Roan Horse hear.” The Indian’s eye-lids drooped. But between them his eyes still gleamed. “Umbrella tree,” he intoned. “Death. Umbrella tree. Yellow Hair. Many smokes. Eagle, eagle. Umbrella tree. ...”
Abercrombie asked Now what in the Hell they made of that. Eszterhazy, somewhat more quieted, said that there was something... something in a corner of his mind ... he could not quite . . .
Said Tex Teeter, pouring water (not much water) into his empty glass and swishing it around to collect the residual essence of whiskey: he said, slowly, “Now didn’t we see some purely odd-lookin kind a tree down in them Eye Talian provinces, whut was they called but um ber ella pines, which shorely they looked like. Now —”
Slowly Eszterhazy put down his own empty glass, not looking as to where it went. And slowly he straightened up again. His air of concentration was almost palpable. It was, certainly, contagious. “The so-called umbrella pine,” he said. “I have seen it in Italy, too. Is it here? In the Monarchy? In Bella? Yes. Yes! That is ... a few specimen trees, I have heard, introduced into his palace grounds by ... by whom? By whom?“ Again he was silent; scarcely, he seemed to be there. Then his head snapped up. His face was luminous. “Yes! The Duke of Dalmatia! In the palace the old King gave him when the Duke was in exile... before there was even an Empire —”
“Well, and who lives there now, my dear young sir?”
Eszterhazy’s face went first slack. Then it flooded with color. “It is now the lair of that dirty beast the Brigand Boustremovitch,” he said. His lips writhed up.
“Oh, sugar!” exclaimed the U.S. Minister. He was not noted for having knowledge of the local scene. But he had heard of the Brigand Boustremovitch. “Well, well. Well, they may fire me for this and I may be lucky to get the post of postmaster in Lump Dicky, Arkansas, but I say Let-tus risk it! A commissioned officer of a great and friendly nation whose capital city lies in temporary disarray asks us to assist in rescuance from durance vile the captured sovereign of another great and friendly, where the Hell is the place? — they won’t dare shoot me; I have diplomatic immunity;” (he also had the hiccups) “is there a bugle in the house, I’ll sound the charge; I used to, as a boy, play wind instruments in the band of The Great Doctor B.B. Jaspers’ Massive Medicine Pill Show; Dr. B.B. Jaspers’ Massive Medicine Pills are so skillfully compounded out of benign marsh and meadow grasses and healing woodland herbs as to be good for the de-bilitating diseases of men and beasts alike, one for a man and two for a milch cow, as wfell as female complaints of a familiar nature, where the Hell is this place?”
Eyes swung to the young cornet. He started to gesture.
“The President of the U-nited States to Ignats Louis, Great and Good Friend, we the People of said U-nited States send our Servant Hiram Abiff Abercrombie in whom there is no guile — Where?"
Cornet Eszterhazy made a gesture of despair. Said, “I have, oh my God, lost my bearings.”
“Well. Colonel, cain’t you git a native guide?”
Roan Horse rose to his feet and re-adjusted his blanket. White circles were painted around his eyes, his nose was yellow, and red&black stripes ran along his face. “No need-em native guide,” he said. “You see-em guide?” He pointed. “Follow,” he said, stalking for his mount. Every eye looked up.
Eszterhazy said, “Sweet tears of Christ.”
Up, up, and up, yet not so far up that they could not be clearly identified for what they were, from north, from east, frcrm south, from west, four columns of eagles flew in upon the capital in a cruciform pattern: and at some point farther on in the city they converged. And circled.
A shout went up from the men of the show; and, waving their carbines, they ran for their horses. General Abercrombie (in his buggy of course) could not keep up with them, but he made good time, and kept the U.S. and Confederate flags being waved up front well in sight.
“Thish year steam calliope,” Major Dandy explained to the watchman, “is made out of prime seasoned English oak and is as hard as iron, if not harder than some iron. It was tooken out of the Lady Washington steamboat, of which I was once Owner and Master, after she run aground off Garrett’s Point; whut toon shall I give’m?” The watchman made no reply; for one thing, the calliope having gotten into motion had started moving forward and lurched out of the Paddock by then. “C ’ that’s whut I’ll give ’em, haw haw haw!” The vehicle did not run smooth. But she ran staunch. And soon the war-whoops and Rebel yells of the horsemen were mingled with the hoarse, steamy notes of the music.
“Chief! Chief! This just come through by heliograph!”
“Give it here, montezuma the famous slayer of the maximillian EMPEROR HAS BEEN SEEN WITH A SQUAD OF IRREGULAR CAVALRY PLEASE flash instruction; they’ve all gone mad, I tell you — mad!”
„He must be told, I say!”
“I say, not yet!”
“He must be told!”
“Tell him yourself, then —”
“It is not my function!”
“Lower your voice, for God’s sake!”
Ignats Louis looked up in some mild annoyance from the interesting marginal gloss about Maurits Louis and the Lovely Mulatta, from which the (as it was called) Egyptian branch of the Morganatic branch of the Royal Family was descended; why were the officials always bothering him? Why couldn’t they make decisions for themselves? What was the use of a Constitution, otherwise? He glanced at the clock, clicked his tongue, and went out through the secret panel and down the secret steps to visit the dear sweet little kiddies in the Infirmary three courtyards away. Sometimes he had half a mind to abdicate and go fish for sardines off Corsica... or else Chatanooga in the Americas and hunt wisents with the Red Faced People.