"Bard's Tale 08 - Curse of the Black Heron - Holly Lisle UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bard's Tale)

"As much as she hates me, I sometimes wonder, too—but I can't say that I see much point in thinking about it. I'd rather be a bard, but my life has gone another way." I peeked in the window of the dar Felpas bakery as the rich, delicious scent of goldberry pie tickled my nose. "Oh, I wish she'd shut the window when she bakes those. I always want one," I said.
Giraud ducked inside and bounded back out again with two large berry tarts. "For us, because we are almost free," he said.
I gave him a quick squeeze—not much of one, for not even the third son of a lord could be seen hugging a common weaver's apprentice, no matter how reputedly lofty her birth. I munched the pie as I walked along, closing my eyes as an especially rich bit of crust and berries melted on my tongue. "Don't you wish all of life was berry pies?" I asked.
"And warm, busy houses in big cities," he said, "with libraries everywhere, and colleges and fairs."
"And silk dresses and silver-stringed guitars and musicians on the street corners," I added.
"And I would be Lord Giraud in my own white-walled castle," he said.
"And I would be your chief bard, and wear gold chains around my waist and ride a black horse."
"And you would never have to look at another loom or shuttle," he said, grinning at me.
"And you would never have to open another history book."
Giraud chuckled and shook his head. "Maybe that wouldn't be such a good outcome after all. I like history considerably better than I like swords or politics."
"Lucky for you," I told him. I reached the door to Marda's shop and grinned up at him. "You'll be busy for months, rewriting all the records in your father's library so that they say 'the evil usurper Salgestis Dargoman,' rather than 'Our Illustrious Liege Salgestis III."'
When he realized I was right and he began to contemplate the enormous task before him, Girauds face fell. I laughed at him. Cruel of me, I know—but he was the only apprentice I knew who got to live at home and learn his work in his father's library, while sleeping in his own bed and having the comfort of
knowing his father and brothers were nearby and that his master didn't dare beat him much, for fear of retaliation.
With such luck, he didn't deserve any sympathy over the amount of work he would have to do.
And that was how it started. We forgot about our new empress and went on with our lives. A week passed, in which I did the final work on my journeyman piece, a blanket that I wove in honor of my patron goddess Neithas, the goddess of both weavers and singers, as well as the goddess of knowledge, the goddess of handicrafts, and when all wasn't right with the world, the goddess of war. Very busy, she is, and encouraging to someone like me who has a hard time making myself finish anything. I was doing the blanket in subtle blues and greens around a central circle composed of interlocking gold rays and pale yellow diamonds, and all through the outer edge, I'd woven looms and chariots and cats . . . well, Neithas is the
foddess of beasts, too. Besides, I like cats. The blan-et was as complex as anything I'd ever tried, and both the overall design and the minor patterns that I worked into it required most of my time and all of my concentration. After all, the journeyman blanket was my chance to earn my way to adulthood and acceptance, and even if weaving was no path I would have chosen for myself, it was, nonetheless, an honorable path, and one blessed by my goddess.
Besides, I could sing while I worked, and that helped.
I barely saw Giraud the entire week I was finishing my blanket; as he'd predicted, his father and both his older brothers had to make the trip to Kingston Bylake to swear fealty, and he stayed behind to make sure Blackwarren s greathouse continued to run as it should. That job would have fallen to his mother, but the Lady dar Falcannes had died of the grippe in the
winter past, and Lord dar Falcannes had not yet found her replacement. I knew from rumors among the other apprentices that he had taken a few young women to his bed, to test them for suitability, but no sheaves of wheat hung from the greathouse gates, so evidently he hadn't found one yet who was to his liking. Or perhaps he hadn't been to the liking of the women he'd entertained.
I'd met the man frequently. He had cold eyes and a cruel mouth and a way of never meeting my eyes when I talked to him, and I thought, personally, that only a very desperate woman would take him as her husband.
The day I finished my blanket, I sat for the better part of a candlemark just staring at it. I realized for the first time that I was good at what I did. Truly good. Neithas had blessed my hands and given me a talent with them that was, if not equal to the voice she'd given me, at least good enough to earn me a fine living—even in a town bigger than Blackwarren.
I was proud enough of myself that I carried the blanket to Marda to show to her.
"So you're finished, then," Marda said. She gave the blanket a cursory glance.
I nodded, my heart sinking. I never asked Marda for her opinion of something that I'd done, because her opinion was always, "Is that the best you can do?" But I couldn't help thinking that this time, surely, she would see that the lovely patterns and fine cloth I'd created were a reflection of her own skill as a teacher, and she'd be proud of me. So, like an idiot, I asked her, "What do you think?"
Marda glanced from the blanket to my face, then back to the blanket for a longer, harder look. When she looked at me again, her eyes had become as cold as a winter wind across the peat bogs—as cold and as bone-chilling.
"We'll discuss it. But not now."
I left it with her at the shop and trudged home, completely unable to imagine what she had found to hate about my work. I ate a silent meal with Birdie, climbed up to my mat in the little loft about the single room of her cottage, and tried to sleep. My mind kept tossing me images of the blanket, and of Marda, and kept struggling to find some flaw that I'd overlooked in the work that would so disgust her that she would look at me the way she had.
No matter how long I lay there, or how much I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position on my mat, I couldn't sleep at all.
Which was just as well.
Finally in the full darkness of late night or possibly early morning, when the fire in the hearth below had guttered down to coals and ashes, as I lay staring up at the slats and thatching just above my head, I heard a soft scratching at the shutters below. It was so light it might have been a branch dragging against the wood in a light wind—except no trees grew anywhere near the window.
Next I heard Birdie moving to the door, something about her movements so surreptitious and stealthy that my gut knotted. Birdies usual slow, clump-footed gait had been replaced by something light and quick and . . . dangerous.
I heard whispers at the door. "Should we go outside?"
"No. She's asleep. Been asleep for a while. Both of you might as well come in."
I could not imagine why anyone would care whether I was awake or asleep, but I didn't have time to ponder the oddness of the question. Others followed after it, each stranger than the one before.
"Did you arrange everything with the guild?" Birdie asked.
"Of course." In the soft reply I recognized the voice
of my craft-master, Marda. What could she be doing in Birdie's house at an hour which hinted that what she did, she wanted no one to know about?
"They've agreed not to wait until they pass judgment on the rest of the apprentices?"
"Why should they? With her, we have no worries of irate parents, and now we need not worry about interference from His Lordship, either. We'll receive their judgment just after first bell in the morning." Marda laughed. The sound was as ugly and cruel as anything I'd ever heard.
"I got news back from my messenger," a masculine voice said. I didn't recognize this voice at all.
Birdie's "Did you?" gave me chills.
"Lord dar Falcannes is dead along with both of his older sons."
"And your own pending lordship?"
"Guaranteed by none other than the empress herself," the stranger's voice assured her. "Her men will arrive in the morning and dispose of the last remnants of the dar Falcannes. When the heads of the household of dar Falcannes adorn pikes in the square, her duke will name me temporary governor, and I'll travel to Kingston Bylake to be knighted. Sir Aymar dar Ressti sounds so much better than just Aymar."
Now I knew who he was. I'd seen him from time to time, a clever, hawk-faced burgher who came into Marda's shop to buy bolts of cloth, and who had twice when I was alone suggested that if I came to his house and was "nice" to him, he would be sure I had pretty dresses and silver jewelry, and that I wouldn't have to worry about weaving for a living. He'd frightened me, but I had no one I could tell about his attentions. So I'd said nothing.
I'd been right to fear him. He'd found a way to have Giraud's father and brothers killed. He intended to see Giraud dead as well. I had to get out of the house to tell him—
"As soon as the guild rejects Isbetta's journeyman status," Aymar said, "I want her delivered to the Wolfshead Inn."
I froze, and my thoughts of charging off to get Giraud came to a halt. The Wolfshead Inn?
"I thought you wanted her for yourself first," Birdie said.
Aymar s chuckle was cold and evil. "I intend to have her for myself first. But I don't want her to be seen at my house. And the little bitch refused me—let her know from the beginning what price she'll pay for her refusal. Tassien will keep her in a room until I can get to her—after I've finished with her, he can put her to work."