The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,46
the shoulder and laughed, congratulating and triumphant—the French falling back in utter confusion, the British ousted, helpless, waiting for the Reich’s conquering armies, Belgium and Holland on their knees... An extremely drunk man in the golden belts and brown uniform of a local Party leader was explaining at the top of his voice to a bored-looking Trudi how England’s work force would be organized for the good of the Reich, and over at the piano a group of the guards from the Kegenwald labor camp were singing “When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, things go twice as well.”
Rhion transferred the glasses to his free hand and thence to his shirt pocket again. He didn’t raise his voice. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”
She drew breath to speak, not sure, he guessed, whether to try out another lie. The next instant someone grabbed Rhion roughly from behind, twisting his arm painfully as a boozy gust of breath from over his shoulder demanded, “This Jewish squirt bothering you, sweetheart?” Twisting to look back, Rhion saw two Storm Troopers, camp guards, blond, clean-shaven men with iron eyes. “You want us to give him a lesson in manners?”
Since you’re so highly qualified in that field... Rhion, panicked, had the sense not to say it; his gaze cut frantically to the smoky room, but Horst, who’d driven him into town, was nowhere in sight. Christ, I’ll report the bastard...
For a moment Sara considered the matter. Then she dimpled coquettishly and shook her head. “Oh, let him go.” She made bedroom eyes at the men and insinuated herself between them, and they released Rhion to make room for her. Her little hands fluttered, caressing collar flashes and sleeve bands as if in childlike admiration of the insignia. “But it’s good to know German maidenhood is being so well protected.”
Obviously the qualifications for maidens have been lowered for the war, Rhion thought, edging out of the crowd as quickly and inconspicuously as possible and heading for one of the vacant tables in a shadowy corner of the room. I wonder if Poincelles made that clear beforehand to the lords of the Tartarean Seat? As he sat down, he found he was shaking. He hadn’t counted on Sara having allies, nor considered the possibility of being beaten bloody in an alley in mistake for a Jew.
He studied her as she teased and flirted with the growing circle of Storm Troopers, always in motion, touching the wrist of one man as he lighted a cigarette for her, the arm of another as she looked up into his face with those huge black eyes. Her garish hair was sticky with the sweat that sheened her face in the frowsty heat; in her cheap, green, flowered dress, her body seemed to crackle with nervous energy and the promise of sensual outrageousness.
Though there was always one barmaid on active duty, it was never the same one—the girls appeared and disappeared regularly through the inconspicuous door near the bar. Old Johann was slumped unconscious in a corner, no more regarded tonight than a half-dead dog. Music blared forth from the radio again, soaring, passionate, incongruously beautiful—the music of this world was some of the loveliest Rhion had ever heard, totally unlike anything he had known in his former life. He wished he could write some of it down for Tally, who would be fascinated by its complexities.
“Who are you?”
Rhion looked up. Sara set two tankards of beer on the table before him. He had seen nightshade sweeter than her eyes.
“Professor Rhion Sligo.” He took a sip of one of the beers. “But Auguste told you that last week.” He produced the pince-nez again and held it out to her. “I found these in a box of about two hundred pairs that the doctor from Kegenwald brought for me to choose from after you broke mine the other night.” Up at the bar he’d seen her take in the black eye and the bruise on the side of his face.
Her hand, which had started toward the glasses, flinched back and clenched on itself, and the red mouth, wide and generous under its paint, hardened. She blew a cloud of cigarette smoke at him and laughed. “I was pretty drunk here the other night but I think I’d remember breaking your glasses for you, Professor. Maybe it was Trudi—she’s pretty much like me when the lights are out.” She plucked the glasses from his hand and tucked them in the soft chasm between her