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“Wait! I just wanted to tell you, Karina… you shouldn't blame me… you… you just haven't loved like that yet, that much. You didn’t fall in love. When you love, you don’t think about anything! You just want to be with this person and it doesn’t matter if he is “white” or “not white”, from your world or from someone else's! It doesn’t matter what is happening around, just you are together, that’s all. It’s hard for you to understand me, because you didn’t love anyone like that, for real, then I would look at you! When you love nothing is important, everything becomes unimportant! You are capable of folly and stupidity…”
“And you tell me that?!”
Kors grinned sadly.
“It's hard to imagine me falling in love and reckless, but I was young. I was different! It was so long ago, and love… Love… It explains everything. Yes, maybe it makes you make mistakes, but it justifies everything. And everything pays off!”
“And… and is it more important than duty?”
“And where is the duty?! What are you talking about? What do you mean? If you're talking about Prince Arel and his notes, again, no! This is not love! This is your whim, and it doesn’t mean anything!”
“I'm not talking about Arel…”
“Karina? Karina! What's the matter? Where are you going?!”
Chapter three
Vitor Kors and Nikto
The convoy, habitually following a long-established rule, roughly pushed Nikto into the room. Here, Vitor Kors usually conducted interrogations of the accused.
Lame Nikto stumbled and nearly fell, moreover, one of the guards forcefully pushed him in the back, and the other indifferently hit the legs with a stick.
Vitor Kors, watching this picture, barely restrained a smile and only shook his head. The guards laughed, they were amused by the awkwardness of Nikto and the fact that he stumbled.
“On your knees,” one of them growled, pressing Niktoon his shoulders, bending him to the floor. Nikto obeyed.
Having thus put the prisoner on his knees, they removed the bag from his head, but Nikto didn’t raise his head, didn’t look at the one to whom he had been brought.
Vitor Kors made a sign with his hand, and one of the soldiers with a stick raised the chin of Nikto up so that his face could be seen. Nikto closed his eyes, a light slanting fringe fell on his forehead, a mutilated cheek as usual was covered by part of the mask.
Vitor Kors looked at the portrait in a gilded frame, and looked at Nikto. He was silent. The pause was delayed, and the guards looked perplexedly at their master, waiting for further orders. Finally, catching the questioning glances of his subordinates, he shook his head, as if driving away the obsession, and rose abruptly from the table.
“Well, well…” He said, somewhat bewildered. He went to Nikto, looking at him very carefully. Walked around.
Nikto’s hands were closed in handcuffs behind his back.
“Free his hands, make him go,” Kors ordered.
The guards immediately began to obey the order. They stopped holding Nikto’s head in a tilted position, and he immediately lowered it down, a mass of white hair covered his face.
And Kors involuntarily looked at the beautiful, clear that good and expensive boots on Nikto’s feet. The new, not worn out sole was lined with shiny steel plates.
The convoy commander, whose name was Nolan, noticed the look of his boss, and nodded in understanding.
“I also noticed,” he said, “great boots!”
“Yeah! Dressed like a master, not a slave,” Kors agreed with a grin.
He stepped with the tip of his boot on the tip of one of Nikto’s braids lying on the floor. He saw that on the one side Nikto had two braids, and on the other – only one.
“Why three braids, not four or two?” He asked.
“What?” Nikto said quietly and a little surprised, he tried to turn around, but the soldiers didn’t allow him.
“And here it is, under his hair,” Nolan roughly lifted part of Nikto’s hair. “It’s short, as if cut off,” he grunted.
“I earn money by honest labor,” Nikto said, as if through force, “I fight at the Coliseum, and with that money… with this money I buy boots.”
The guards and Kors laughed.
“No need to make excuses,” Kors continued to smile, “no one currently blames you for anything. There is nothing wrong with being well dressed. I even like it!”
Nikto was silent.
“Well? Why did you shut up? You have such a funny accent, as if lisping, are your teeth all in place?”
“In place,” Nikto snapped back.
The guards laughed again.
“Okay, I'm joking. I see that they are in place. Tell me, as usual, that you are not to blame for anything, and you were treated unfairly. Everyone who happens to be here in this room always tells me about it. All innocentand arrested unfairly!”
Kors turned to the soldiers:
“Have you heard at least one person admit right away that he is here in fairness and for the cause?”
The guards continued to have fun:
“No, sir!”
“After all, they also treated you unfairly? Isn’t it so? And you are not to blame for anything? Correctly?”
“Yes,” Nikto answered.
Kors, barely restraining himself, made a signal to the soldiers to shut up:
“Stop having fun! Man has sorrow!”
They calmed down instantly, clearly continuing to enjoy the performance and anticipating what usually followed a little later.
“Here you see! And how was it that those people treat you unfairly? Will you tell us?”
Vitor Kors returned to the table:
“Well? Why are you keeping silent? Say it, don’t be shy, everybody are my people here!”
Nikto raised his face, and Vitor Kors again involuntarily turned his gaze to the portrait.
“I was not born a slave, but they made me it! Unfair!” Nikto said with some challenge.
Vitor Kors stopped smiling:
“What does it mean?”
Nikto blinked several times, bowed his head to the side, trying to dodge the light falling on him from the window:
“Yes. I didn’t commit any crime, for which I could be branded as slave and sent to hard labor!”
“Why did you sit in jail at the reds then if you are so good?” Asked Vitor Kors, but it was noticeable that this conversation no longer entertained him.
“The patrol of the reds spotted me near the portal, and I killed one of them. But this is not a crime. Killing the “red” is not a crime. I just didn’t want to go with them and defended myself.”
“What did you do near the portal? Wanted to escape to the upper world?”
“No. I just came there in memory of my girlfriend. That was stupid. But I had nowhere else to go. And I sat there for hours. But I didn’t open it.”
“Yeah, and what was to be done with you? Can you give some advice?”
“Maybe it was better to leave me there, at the Doctor, and give him the opportunity to treat me completely.”
Vitor Kors dropped a portrait of his wife:
“Heck!” He cursed, putting it in place.
“So, what is next? Let’s suppose a doctor would cure you. His name was Caspar, if I am not mistaken? Caspar Yanti.”
Nikto nodded.
“Yes.”
“And what would you do next?”
“Maybe… maybe he would let me stay with him and help him. I would like that. I would stay with him. I understand medicine and would help him.”
“Do you understand medicine?!”
“Yes. Mother and sister taught me.”
“According to my sources, Caspar Yanti moved to the city several years ago, and lives here.”
“I know that,” Nikto answered.
“Why aren't you with him now? Why don’t you help him?” A grin played on Kors’ lips.
Nikto bowed his head:
“Now it's too late… But,” he raised his face in some kind of a fit, “I still love medi… medicine! Especially I’m good with eyes!”
Kors stopped smiling.
“You tell me everything very frankly, Nikto, that's what your name is, right?”
“Yes.”
“What did the prince call you?”
“Prince Arel?”
“Yes.”
“Nik.”
“Just Nik?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm… I never would have called you Nik. But that’s only Arel! If he doesn’t have enough imagination, even to come up with decent names for his people! If a person is squint, he will call him Squint-Eye, if he is red-haired, he will be Lis, if Nikto, he will be Nik,”Kors grinned.
“Yes. Nik,” Nikto confirmed.
“Nik, and Prince Arel didn’t tell you how our conversations usually went with him?”
“He told me.”
“Didn’t he tell you to keep your mouth shut? Didn’t he tell you to be silent, as to Squint-Eye or others?”
“My words, they mean nothing, I don’t do anything bad to anyone through them, they are no use now.”
“So it turns out you have your own head on your shoulders?”
Nikto shook his head:
“What does it mean?”
“Go here. Sit on a chair. Release him. Let him stand and sit in front of me in a chair.”
Nikto awkwardly got up from his knees, walked forward slowly, he extended his hands in handcuffs in front of him, touching the back of a chair, circled it and sat down.
“Do you have poor eyesight?!”
“I see poorly in the light.”
“Do you see me?”
Nikto shook his head.
“No. I need dark glasses. Here it’s light as on the street and the sun in the window hits right in the eye.”
