"Huff, Tanya - Kigh 01 - Sing The Four Quarters V2.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

"Wait a minute." Bohdan was his elderly steward;
Rezka ruled the kitchens, and Urmi, her partner, was the stablemaster; Kaspar was Gerek's pony. Pjerin made a point of knowing the names of all his people, high or low, and occasionally four-legged. "Who's Brencis?"
"A goat." Gerek shrugged at his father's ignorance and obediently turned to have his back dried. "Aunty Olina likes him."
"Who? Brencis?"
"No! Albek!" Standing naked in the firelight, he scratched the back of one leg with the other foot. "If you don't like him, how come you let him stay around. You could make him go if you wanted to."
"Your Aunt Olina likes him. And this is her home, too."
"Oh. Bohdan doesn't like him neither. Bohdan says that Albek is so slippery even the Circle couldn't hold him."
"Arms up."
Gerek raised his arms and poked them through the sleeves of his nightshirt. "Does that make him a bad man, Papa? I thought everything was in the Circle?"
Pjerin made a mental note to speak to Bohdan about his choice of words. And then he can-explain theology to a four-year-old. Maybe it was time they had a priest at the keep. "Everything is in the Circle, even Albek."
"But Bohdan said…"
"Never mind what Bohdan said."
Gerek peered up at his father from under his lashes. Ever?"
"Never mind what he said about Albek, you terror. You still mind what he says the rest of the time." The next few moments degenerated into a wild free-for-all that ended with Pjerin flat on his back and Gerek perched on his chest demanding his surrender.
"You win. I surrender."
"Kiss my ringer."
"Is that part of the surrender?"
"No. It got bit by a chicken."
"What were you doing in the henhouse?"
"Helping." At Pjerin's frown he hastily added, "Really helping. Not like last time."
Pjerin raised his head off the floor and kissed the proffered finger. Then he continued the motion, scooping Gerek into his arms and rising lithely to his feet. With the boy cradled against his chest, he stepped around the pair of servants removing the bath and settled down into the only piece of furniture in the room large enough to hold his weight.
Gerek squirmed around until he was sitting half on his father's lap and half beside him tucked into the angle of the big chair. Stretching his bare toes out toward the fire, he said, "Can I stay with you for vigil this year?"
"Of course you can."
"Can I have my own candle?" His voice was hopeful, but he obviously didn't expect a positive answer.
"Yes."
"Really? Truly?"
Pjerin hid a smile at the tone. Last year, Gerek's candle had very nearly set the keep on fire when he'd fallen asleep and it had dropped to the floor but not gone out. Fortunately, the burning tapestry had smelled so bad that he and Olina had been able to put it out with only a handbreadth of damage done. This year, they'd be more alert. "Really. Truly."
With a satisfied sigh, the boy leaned his head against Pjerin's chest. "Nees sang me a song about the sun coming back," he said.
"Is Nees another goat?"
"No! Nees the bard!"
"Nees?" Pjerin frowned. He couldn't remember a bard named Nees and, with Ohrid right on the border, they didn't get many walking out so far.
"You know, Papa, the one who was here when it rained so much and she sang me stories and she kept making Aunty Olina mad by smiling at her."
Then he remembered. Olina had been in a mood; at her most challenging and ready to remove the evening from the Circle altogether. The bard had said quietly, I wouldn't. You'll lose. To his surprise, Olina had studied the younger woman for a long moment, nodded, and blunted the edge of her tongue. He'd been the only one close enough to hear the exchange but—if even Gerek had picked up on it-—the results had obviously been noticed by the rest of the keep. That wasn't likely to make Olina happy if she found out. "You mean, Annice, Ger."
"Yeah. Nees."
Frankly, the bard hadn't looked like the sort who could give Olina a run for her money. Although she'd worn the same annoying air of cocky independence that marked every bard he'd ever seen, the expression in her eyes had been contemplative rather than combative. Hazel eyes, the kind that turned almost green when… He shook himself free of the memory. It had ended up an interesting night all around. "So the bard sang you new stories, did she?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, maybe you should tell me a story tonight."
"No." Gerek snuggled into Pjerin's side, fingers playing with a damp spot caused by a spout of bathwater accidentally rising to meet a shirt. "You tell me about the dragon who wanted to be a boy."
"But you've heard that one a thousand times, Ger."
"So?"
Pjerin smiled, inhaled the clean scent of his child, and began. "Once upon a time, there was a dragon who wanted to be a boy…"
The knock on the heavy oak door of the tiny room he used for a study was so faint, Pjerin thought at first he'd imagined it. When it sounded again, he threw his hair back over his shoulder and turned to face it, calling, "Come." He hated ciphering and anything would be a relief from the columns of figures Bohdan had insisted he go over tonight.
Almost anything, he amended a moment later. "What do you want?"
Albek stepped apologetically into the room, a pottery carafe in one hand, two heavy mugs in the other. "I saw you were still up. I thought we might…"
"Have a drink together? Don't be an ass." He dragged the chair around to face the other man and scowled. "What my aunt does is her own business, but I don't drink with Cemandians. Get out!"
"I was hoping, that is, I hoped that until Olina went to sleep…"
Pjerin's scowl deepened. "I thought you got along with Olina?"
"I do." Albek's smile had picked up a slight twist of desperation. "But I can't… get along with her… again. Not so soon."
"You're limping."
"Nothing permanent. I assure you I can still leave in the morning."