"Elgin,.Suzette.Haden.-.Ozark.-.01.-.Twelve.Fair.Kingdoms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

while we're at it?"

"Beg your pardon?" She had a slack jaw, too, and it
dropped, doing nothing to improve the general effect.

"As should you," I said crossly. "The year is 3012, and
*well met* went out with the chastity belt and the spindle."

"I have a spindle," she said to me, all sauce, but she must
not of cared for the expression on my face; she left it at that.

"What's your name, guardmaid?" I asked hec while I
waited for the idea to reach her brain that someone should be
notified of my arrival.

"Demarest, I'm called. Demarest of Wommack."

Twelve Fair Kingdoms 19

Demarest ... it was a name that had no associations for
me, and she was far from home.

"Would you tell the McDaniels I'm here, Demarest of
Wommack?" I asked her, giving up. No doubt the McDaniels,
like myself, were having trouble finding Castle staff that could
even begin to meet the minimum needs of their jobs. It made
me sorry, at times, that robots were forbidden to us- True, they
were me first step toward a population that just lay around and
got fat and then died of bone laziness; I understood and
approved the prohibition. But they would of been so useful for
some things. Pacing off the boundaries of a kingdom, for
instance, which had to be done on foot, every inch of
it ... and letting people into Castles.

She looked at me out of the corner of blue eyes under
straight-cut coppery bangs, and she tugged at the beUpull
hanging at her right hand, and in due course me Castle
Housekeeper appeared and opened the front doors to me. She
did not, I'm happy to say, tell me I was well met; but she called
stablemaios to take away the Mule and unload my saddlebags.
and she showed me into a small waiting room where a fire
burned bright against me February chill. And she saw to it that
someone brought me a glass of wine and a mug of hearty soup.

I settled my complicated skirts and maddening trousers, and
drank my soup and wine, and soon enough the arched door
opened and in came Anne of Brightwater, my kinswoman and a
McDaniels by marriage, to greet me.

"Law!" she said from the doorway, looking me up and