"Gregory Feeley - Fancy Bread" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feeley Gregory)

The sparsely hedged fields also offer few means of concealment, and Jack
walks bent and brisk when a rise threatens to bring him within sight of harrowers,
who will soon be out. He knows enough not to fear pursuit—no rustic will leave his
work to accost a sturdy wayfarer a field away—but word travels fast even in
villages, and he does not want suspicion running before him.

But no one is abroad at this least pleasant hour, too early for laborers and too
late for the rogues who walk the roads at night. Other travelers—the tag-and-rag
army of vagabonds and abandoned women who fill the highways—will be out soon,
and Jack does not care to be numbered among them. If he has not a horse and a fine
plumed hat, he must distinguish himself otherwise.

The first cottage he sees is not promising; but the men are out by now, so
disappointment is not likely to prove calamitous. Jack cannot suppress a quaver of
fear at approaching a strange door, but is by the knowledge that most peasants (with
dangerous exceptions) are stupid as dirt. Ignorant of the ways of cozenage, they
substitute a brute suspicion of all strangers: which, being surmounted, could leave
them defenseless as hatchlings.

Jack sees no chickens in the yard, but no dogs neither. He fingers his beard
for crumbs, then spits three times on his right hand. The effort produces a loud
rumble in his stomach. Emboldened by such perceptible evidence of want, he
knocks upon the door—not confidently, as serves some circumstances, but weakly
as he thinks will be heard.

He is bent to one side as the door is opened and a servant girl looks out. “Ah,
mistress, a cup of water in Christ’s name. I am set upon and robbed of my wares,
and beaten half to death besides.”

He steps back at this point, rather than forward as the servant fears, and
staggers with a soft groan. The servant gasps—he is listening even as he
grimaces—and before she can speak he brings up his hand and feels tenderly the
back of his head. The pig’s blood (from yesterday’s unsuccessful venture) has dried
in his hair, but enough comes away to redden his wet fingers and gives a half-clotted
appearance.
 “Jesu!” the girl exclaims. “Does it hurt?”

“More now than last night, though it scarce seems possible.” Jack looks at her
ruefully. “I hid my face in my hands, but they kicked my ribs till I feared they be
stove in. And my wares—” Here he sighs as if at the cruellest stroke of all. “My lace
and pins and buttons, which I have three times sold thy lady in the spring, are stolen
me.”

“The goodwife is not in,” says the witless creature. At this Jack lowers himself
to the ground, as though his legs were failing him, and cries out briefly as one ham
touches the packed earth.

“My teeth are not broke,” he says, touching them, “but I am sore dry. Is there
water here cleaner than the ditch’s where I lay?”