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

The only work for women at Tassien's inn was whoring.
"The whores guild doesn't object?" Marda asked.
"The whore s guild is willing to pretend she doesn't exist, as long as she takes only the trade the guild doesn't want," Aymar said. "Tassien offered to buy her outright from me, but I decided I'd rather have a percentage of the money he gets from her. In return, I'll pay you a gold crown every month in recognition of your status as her . . . her foster-mother." He chuckled. "For as long as she lasts, anyway; that will add up nicely for the two of you, won't it?"
"It will indeed," Birdie said.
Marda just laughed softly. "And to think I promised the Black Heron we'd kill her after we killed her father."
I jammed the side of my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. My father was dead? And these were his killers? I'd always thought he'd returned to Greffon and the king.
For an instant, the darkness that welled up from the depths of my soul swallowed me. I didn't want to live. I didn't want to have to move. I thought, in just that brief, bitter instant, that I would lie in the
loft waiting for whatever came to me; that I would give in; that I wouldn't fight, because I couldn't win. But self-preservation pushed back despair.
Birdie's voice raised slightly from its previous cautious low tones. "I told you there was money in orphans."
"Yes," Aymar said, "but even you wanted to whore her out as soon as we got her, and think of the income you would have lost from her weaving in the meantime. And she never would have lasted a month whoring at first. Now . . . well, now she might survive a year. And we've been paid thrice for her miserable life—the Black Heron's money, and the weaving, and now this."
They were silent for a while. I lay in the darkness, wondering how I could get out of the house and flee before they could catch me. Wondering how I could save Giraud. Wondering how I could get even with them for killing my father. . . .
"I'm still surprised," Birdie said, and her voice was thoughtful, "that the Black Heron didn't have his people kill us when we couldn't find those pages her father hid."
"He still hopes we'll find them. And I think we will. I'm telling you, the bastard hid them in dar Falcannes house," Aymar said. "I'll start looking for them tomorrow. And when we find them we'll copy them. We'll sell the Heron the originals for the hundred pounds of gold he promised. Then we'll figure out how to profit from the copies."
"How do you know you'll even recognize them when you see them?" Marda asked him. "Dar Falcannes has lived in that place for seven years since the bard left it, and he hasn't found them."
"Maybe. Or maybe he has and he's been using them all this time. Or maybe the bard hid them in a book in the library, or buried them in a jar in the garden. They were just parchment pages. They weren't
anything fancy—I suspect they were copies the bard made from something else, since they looked new. I couldn't read them—they were in that script the bards use that only they know."
"I don't understand why you didn't steal the pages when you had your hands on them."
They fell silent again. Finally Aymar said, "There's an old saying—'Never steal from a live bard.' It's good advice."
I thought, You shouldn't have stolen from a dead one either, Aymar—you're going to pay for it. But I certainly couldn't make him pay for it right then.
Both Marda and Aymar left at last, and I listened while Birdie climbed the ladder to my loft. I had my back to her, and I kept my breathing regular and slow, and my eyes closed—I focused on feeling relaxed, on being calm, on allowing my body to go limp. Meanwhile, I could feel her stare like a knife between my shoulder blades, and I had to fight the impulse to hold my breath. I wished her away, feeling as scared as I ever had in my life. She was a murderer, and she wanted to sell me to a whoremaster, and if I didn't get away she would.
Chapter Two
Finally I heard her moving down the ladder again, and shuffling around. I heard the creak of her bed as she climbed into it, and the rustle of her blanket as she pulled it over her. Then I waited some more. I didn't dare do anything until she fell asleep. In the meantime, I had to be sure that I didn't give away the fact that I was awake, or that I knew what had happened and what was about to happen. So I continued to think calm thoughts to keep my body relaxed and limp and my breathing regular and slow and deep. Calm thoughts—green fills and the steady rhythm of shuttle through warp forming weft and the feel of a song in my lungs and my belly and my throat. Calm thoughts and a relaxed body, when all I wanted to do was run.
And at last I heard her breathing change, the soft burr of her snore; the only signal I would get.
I got up carefully and dressed, then packed my few belongings—my sleeping shirt, my other breeches, my other tunic, my other undergarments, the wooden flute my father gave me, my knife and whetstone, my personals. Everything I owned, when rolled tightly
enough, fit into the pockets of my cloak. I wondered if I dared climb down the ladder to retrieve my boots. I had thought to just cut through the rope that bound the roofing slats to the crossbeams, then push my way through the thatching to get outside; but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I would have to travel in the mountains if I hoped to find some form of safety, and if I traveled in the mountains I had to have my boots. Which meant climbing down the ladder to retrieve them—and then, since time was my enemy as much as noise, lifting the bar that held the oaken door locked and slipping out of it into the street.
Then hurrying clear across the village without giving the impression that I was hurrying, to get Giraud up and out of Blackwarren before the empress's hunters came to kill him. Then running. East to the Stormfather Mountains, then through whatever passes the two of us could find, and north into Lieda. Running ahead of the soon-to-be-knighted Aymar dar Ressti and the empress's killers and the villagers who would come after us, eager for reward.
I took a deep breath and eased myself over the edge of the loft, braced myself on the ladder, and crept down. Twice as fast a I should have, a thousand times more slowly than I wanted to. The ladder didn't creak, and I stepped barefooted onto the wide-boarded floor of the cottage. I knew from experience that some of the boards squeaked; what I couldn't remember but desperately needed to was which of them. I hadn't been in the practice of sneaking out of the house; my only experience came from the rare hurried trip to the outhouse in full darkness, and in those situations, I'd had nothing to hide.
And that was my answer, of course. In the event that Birdie woke enough to notice me, I would say I had to go to the outhouse. Of course, when I failed
to return, she'd come after me. I'd lose hours of the small lead I'd have anyway. So I kept quiet, tested each board with a cautious step before moving onto it, and balanced my weight as carefully as I could to avoid making any noise. Even so, something about my presence disturbed Birdie, for when I was more than halfway across the room, she rolled to one side and murmured in a half-awake voice, "Wha's tha'? Did 'ou say somethin'?"
Now I did hold my breath. And I prayed, Neithas, if you love me, make her go back to sleep.
Neithas heard me, for after a while that seemed like forever, Birdie's snoring resumed. I finished my trek across the single room, tugged my boots on— for if anyone saw me putting them on while sitting on the boardwalk outside our door, they would know instantly that I was sneaking about something—and lifted the door bar. I settled it on the floor in its customary place. I always left the house to go to Marda's shop long before Birdie woke and rose—she was accustomed to seeing it out of place. Only if she got up during the night for some reason and discovered the unbarred door would she realize something had gone wrong. If she didn't realize I'd left far too early, I could hope that she would assume I had gone to the shop, and that Marda would assume that Birdie was keeping me busy around the cottage.
The door opened quietly—Birdie had never been able to stand the noise of squeaking hinges, and so kept them well-greased. I pulled it shut behind me as I stepped out onto the boardwalk, then looked down the street in both directions. I saw no one, which was good for more than the obvious reason. In Blackwarren everyone rose when the sun rose and slept when the sun slept. Anyone out with me would be up to no good.
I jumped off the boardwalk and moved through the street, which was terribly dusty but at least not
knee-deep with mud as it always became in the spring. I didn't mind getting dusty—I just didn't want my boot heels to clatter on the boards.
I hurried through the streets, keeping to back ways and always choosing dirt streets over cobblestone ones, because I could run faster and more quietly over dirt. I moved steadily uphill, between the huddled houses over Blackwarren that grew bigger and more attractive the further uphill I went. Blackwarren House stood at the top of the hill, unwalled and ungated because the greathouse held neither an army nor the wealth that would tempt invaders.
That worked in my favor, of course. It would have played havoc with my plans if I first had to work my way past gate guards and an army barracks and a houseful of servants. Lucky for Giraud his father was a poor, weak lord. Well, maybe not so lucky. If Lord dar Falcannes had been rich and powerful he might have still been alive, and his private army might have been intimidating enough that the Empress dar Kothia Surdosti would have thought twice about attacking his home and replacing him with some sneaking, murdering sycophant.
As it was, I went up the rose trellis outside Girauds room and rapped on his window until, rubbing his eyes and yawning, he opened it.
"Izza! What in the world—"
"Get a change of clothes and your weapons and come with me," I said. "I don't have time to explain, other than to tell you that the empress's men will be here at first light to kill you."
Giraud never had a stupid day, and bleary-eyed and sleep-fogged though he was, he didn't have one then, either. Without argument or question, he ran from the window; only moments later, he returned. In that length of time, I'd had time to think.
"Which of your servants is most loyal to your family?" I asked him.
"Beidus. He served my father when they were both boys, and has been with us ever since."
"Get him quickly. Shortly after we leave, he needs to set fire to the house, then rouse the villagers to fight it; when all the village is stirred, he and the rest of your servants need to escape in the melee."
Giraud's eyes narrowed and he studied me for a moment while a cold and terrible blankness stole over his face, robbing it of expression. "Yes," he said. He vanished into the darkness of his room again, and this time took much longer to return.
"It's done," he said. "Those I trust will be wakened shortly, so that they'll have time to gather what few belongings they can. I've told Beidus to empty the stables and chase the horses into the hills, then set fire to the outbuildings first. I told him that Da had been murdered and the killers were coming for all of us next." He handed me one pack, and slipped a second one under his cloak and shrugged into it. Then he swung his leg over the window and only when his back was to me and I'd donned my own pack and we were both climbing down the trellis did he add, "That's what has happened, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said.
"And somehow you found out."
"I found out a lot," I told him.
We took only his two best horses. We would not travel far on horseback—we would be too conspicuous if we rode like lords instead of walking like commoners. But the horses would give us some distance from Blackwarren before anyone discovered our absence. We could cool the horses down and turn them loose before we got into the heart of the mountains—they'd find plenty of food in the uplands and we wouldn't have to worry about how we were going to feed them, rest them, water them, or get them over some of the worst of the mountain passes that led to Lieda.
We would have enough to worry about with just! ourselves. \