"Kerr,.Katharine.-.Deverry.01.-.Daggerspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

“She doesn’t. She’s just rags.”
Then they heard the priestess, chanting a long sobbing note, keening for the soul of the dead. Jill tried to make herself feel brave, then laid her head on the table and sobbed aloud.
They buried Mama out in the sacred oak grove behind the village. For a week, Jill went every morning to cry beside the grave until Macyn finally told her that visiting the grave was like pouring oil on a fire—she would never put her grief out by doing it. Since Mama had told her to mind what he said, Jill stopped going. Soon custom picked up again in the tavern, and she was busy enough to keep from thinking about Mama all the time.
Local people came in to gossip, farmers stopped by on market day, and every now and then merchants and peddlars paid to sleep on the floor for want of a proper inn in the village. Jill washed tankards, ran errands, and even served the ale when the tavern was crowded at night. Whenever a man from out of town came through, Jill would ask him if he’d ever heard of her father, Cullyn of Cerrmor, the silver dagger. No one ever had any news at all.
The village was in the northmost province of the kingdom of Deverry, the greatest kingdom in the whole world of Annwn—or so Jill had always been told. She knew that down to the south was the splendid city of Dun Deverry, where the High King lived in an enormous palace. Bobyr, however, where JiU had spent her whole life, had about fifty round houses, made of rough slabs of flint packed with earth to keep the wind out of the walls. On the side of a steep Cerrgonney hill, they clung to narrow twisted streets so that the village looked like a handful of boulders thrown among a stand of straggly pine trees. In the little valleys among the hills, farmers wrestled small fields out of the rocky land and walled their plots with the stones.
About a mile away was the dun, or fort, of Lord Melyn, to whom the village owed fealty. Jill had always been told that it was everyone’s Wyrd to do what the noble-born said, because the gods had made them noble. The dun was certainly impressive enough to Jill’s way of thinking to have had some divine aid behind it. It stood on the top of the highest hill, surrounded by both a ring of earthworks and a ramparted stone wall. A broch, a round tower of slabbed stone, rose in the middle and loomed over the other buildings inside the walls. From the top of the village, Jill could see the dun and Lord Melyn’s blue banner flapping on the broch.
Much more rarely Jill saw Lord Melyn himself, who only occasionally rode into the village, usually to administer a judgment on someone who’d broken the law. When, on one particularly hot and airless day, Lord Melyn actually came into the tavern for some ale, it was an important event. Although the lord had thin gray hair, a florid face, and a paunch, he was an impressive man, standing ramrod straight and striding in like the warrior he was. With him were two young men from his warband, because a noble lord never went anywhere alone. Jill hastily ran her hands through her messy hair and made the lord a curtsey. Macyn came hurrying with his hands full of tankards; he set them down and made the lord a bow.
“Cursed hot day,” Lord Melyn remarked, drinking thirstily.
“It is, my lord,” Macyn said, somewhat awestruck that the lord would speak to him.
“Pretty child.” Lord Melyn glanced at Jill. “Your granddaughter?”
“She’s not, my lord,” Macyn said. “But the child of the lass who used to work here for me.”
“She died of a fever,” one of the riders interrupted. “Cursed sad thing.”
“Who’s her father?” Lord Melyn said. “Or does anyone even know?”
“Oh, not a doubt in the world, my lord,” the rider said with an unpleasant grin. “Cullyn of Cerrmor, and no man would have dared to trifle with his wench.”
“True enough.” Lord Melyn laughed under his breath. “So, lass, you’ve got a famous father, do you?”
“I do?” Jill said.
Lord Melyn laughed again.
“Well, no doubt a warrior’s glory doesn’t mean much to a little lass, but your da’s the greatest swordsman in all Deverry, silver dagger or no.” The lord reached into the leather pouch at his belt and brought out some coppers to pay Macyn, then handed Jill a silver piece. “Here, child, without a mother you’ll need a bit of coin to get a new dress.”
“My humble thanks, my lord.” As she made him a curtsey, Jill realized that her dress was indeed awfully shabby. “May the gods bless you.”
After the lord and his men left the tavern, Jill put her silver piece into a little wooden box in her chamber. At first, looking at it gleaming in the box made her feel like a rich lady herself; then all at once she realized that his lordship had just given her charity. Without that coin, she wouldn’t be able to get a new dress, just as without Macyn’s kindness, she would have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. The thought seemed to burn in her mind. Blindly she ran outside to the stand of trees behind the tavern and threw herself facedown onto the shady grass. When she called out to them, the Wildfolk came—her favorite gray gnome, a pair of warty blue fellows with long pointed teeth, and a sprite, who would have looked like a tiny beautiful woman if it weren’t for her eyes, wide, slit like a cat’s, and utterly mindless. Jill sat up to let the gray gnome climb into her lap.
“I wish you could talk,” Jill said. “If something should happen to Macyn, could I come live in the woods with your folk?”
The gnome idly scratched his armpit while he considered.
“I mean, you could show me how to find things to eat,” Jill went on. “And how to keep warm when it snows.”
The gnome nodded in a way that seemed to mean yes, but it was always hard to tell what the Wildfolk meant. Jill was not even exactly sure what they were. Although they suddenly appeared and vanished at will, they felt real enough when you touched them, and they could pick up things and drink the milk that Jill set out for them at night. Thinking of living with them in the woods was as much frightening as it was comforting.
“Well, I hope nothing happens to Macco,” Jill said. “But I worry.”
The gnome nodded sympathetically and patted her arm with a skinny twisted hand. Since the other children in the village made fun of Jill for being a bastard, the Wildfolk were the only real friends she had.
“Jill?” Macyn was calling her from the tavern yard. “Time to come in and help cook dinner.”
“I’ve got to go,” Jill said to the Wildfolk. “I’ll give you milk tonight.”
They all laughed, dancing in a little circle around her feet, then vanishing without a trace. As Jill walked back, Macyn came to meet her.
“Who were you talking to out here?” he said.
“No one. Just talking.”
“To the Wildfolk, I suppose?” Macyn was grinning, teasing her.
Jill merely shrugged. She’d learned very early that nobody believed her when she told them that she could see the Wildfolk.
“I’ve got a nice bit of pork for our dinner,” Macyn said. “We’d best eat quickly, because on a hot night like this one, everyone’s going to come for a bit of ale.”
Macyn was exactly right. As soon as the sun went down, the room filled up with local people, men and women both, come to have a good gossip. No one in Bobyr had much real money; Macyn kept track of what everyone owed him on a wooden plank. When there were enough marks under someone’s name, Macyn would get food or cloth or shoes from that person and start keeping track all over again. They did earn a few coppers that night from a wandering peddler, who had a big pack of fancy thread for embroidery, needles, and even some ribands from a big town to the west. When Jill served him, she asked, as usual, if he’d ever heard of Cullyn of Cerrmor.
“Heard of him?” the peddler said. “I just saw him, lass, about a fortnight ago.”
Jill’s heart started pounding.
“Where?” she said.
“Up in Gwingedd. There’s something of a war up there, two lords and one of their cursed blood feuds, which is why, I don’t mind telling you, I came down this southern way. But I was drinking in a tavern my last night there, and I see this lad with a silver dagger in his belt. That’s Cullyn of Cerrmor, a lad says to me, and don’t you ever cross him, neither.” He shook his head dolefully. “Them silver daggers is all a bad lot.”
“Now here! He’s my da!”
“Oh, is he now? Well, what harsh Wyrd you’ve got for such a little lass—a silver dagger for a da.”
Although Jill was furious, she knew that there was no use in arguing. Everyone despised silver daggers. Although most warriors lived in the dun of a noble lord and served him as part of his honor-sworn warband, silver daggers traveled around the kingdom and fought for any lord who had the coin to hire them. Sometimes when Da rode to see Jill and her mother, he would have lots of money to give them; at others, barely a copper, all depending on how much he could loot from a battlefield. Although Jill didn’t understand why, she knew that once a man was a silver dagger, no one would ever let him be anything else. Cullyn had never had the chance to marry her mother and take her to live with him in a dun, the way honor-sworn warriors could do with their women.
That night Jill prayed to the Goddess of the Moon to keep her father safe in the Gwingedd war. Almost as an afterthought, she asked the Moon to let the war be over soon, so that Cullyn could come see her right away. Apparently, though, wars were under the jurisdiction of some other god, because it was two months before Jill had the dream. Every now and then, she would dream in a way that was exceptionally vivid and realistic. Those dreams always came true. Just like with the Wildfolk, she had learned early to keep her true dreams to herself. In this particular one, she saw Cullyn come riding into town.
Jill woke in a fever of excitement. Judging from the short shadows that everything had in the dream, Da would arrive around noon. All morning Jill worked as hard as she could to make the time pass faster. Finally, she ran to the front door of the tavern and stood there looking out. The sun was almost directly overhead when she saw Cullyn, leading a big chestnut warhorse up the narrow street. All at once Jill remembered that he didn’t know about Mama. She dodged back inside fast.
“Macco! Da’s coming! Who’s going to tell him?”
“Oh by the hells!” Macyn ran for the door. “Wait here.”
For a few miserable minutes Jill stayed inside, painfully aware that the men sitting at one table were looking at her with pity. The looks made her remember the terrible night when Mama died so much that she had to get away from them, and she ran out the door. Just down the street Macyn was talking to her father with a sympathetic hand on Cullyn’s shoulder. Cullyn was staring at the ground, his face set and grim, saying not a word.
Cullyn of Cerrmor was well over six feet tall, warrior-straight and heavy-shouldered, with blond hair and ice-blue eyes. Down his left cheek ran an old scar, which made him look frightening even when he smiled. His plain linen shirt was filthy from the road, and so were his brigga, the loose woolen trousers that all Deverry men wore. On his heavy belt hung his one splendor—a sword in a gold-trimmed scabbard, a gift from a great lord—and his shame, the silver dagger in a tattered leather sheath. The silver pommel with its three little knobs gleamed, as if warning people against its owner. When Macyn finished talking, Cullyn laid his hand on his sword hilt, as if for comfort. Macyn took the horse’s reins, and they walked up to the tavern.
Jill ran to Cullyn and threw herself into his arms. He picked her up, holding her tightly. He smelled of sweat and horses, the comforting familiar scent of her beloved da.
“My poor little lass!” Cullyn said. “By the hells, what a rotten father you’ve got!”