"Mindy L. Klasky - Glasswright Apprentice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Klasky Mindy L)

apprentice's immediate apology. Morada towered over the girl, the grey streak in her jet hair
standing out like a cruel whip. The instructor set her bony hands on her hips, and even as
Rani averted her gaze, she could make out the spiderweb of white glass-scars on the woman's
fingers.

"I'm sorry, Instructor Morada. Guildmistress Salina sent me with your lunch. She said to
bring it to you before the Presentation."

"I don't need any lunch! Can't you see I'm finishing the window? I don't have time to be
interrupted by a stupid apprentice."

Rani didn't like Morada much under any circumstances, and she was particularly rebellious
after her fight through the crowd. It took a full count of ten before she yielded to the guild's
precepts. "I am sorry, Instructor, if this apprentice has failed to meet your expectations." Rani
remembered to lower her eyes, which was just as well, given the smoldering resentment she
was unable to quench completely. In fact, she imagined that her anger gave off the acrid
stench of burning. "I beg your pardon, Instructor, and I beg leave to assist you in your work."

"No!" Morada's outraged cry was enough to cause Rani to meet her agate gaze, even though
she knew she would pay for the insolence. The cold hatred that greeted her sent a shiver down
the girl's spine. Morada was not taunting her with an instructor's typical cool superiority; she
was not channeling the tight rage that instructors reserved for slow or recalcitrant students.
Rather, the woman's lips were white with suppressed fury, and she lurched threateningly to
where Rani huddled on the edge of the scaffold platform. "Didn't you see that I pulled up the
rope support? Even you are old enough to know when instructors do not wish to be
disturbed."

Rani's eyes darted to the pile of rope beside the scaffold's wooden ladder, coiled high against
the cathedral's stone wall. "Instructor, I merely acted on Guildmistress Salina's orders—"

"Apprentice, you 'merely' violated one of the most basic guild rules. If you want to do
anything other than grind paint for the next ten years, I strongly advise you to stop talking
back to your superiors and leave this scaffold. Now." Rani wanted to explain, to soothe
Morada with a joke and a story, but the instructor's fury cut her off. Under guild rules,
Morada was wholly in the right, even if Rani had had no choice but to follow Guildmistress
Salina's instructions.

Rani set the basket of food carefully on the scaffold platform, edging aside a coil of lead
stripping.

Lead stripping.

Lead stripping had no place at the cathedral. The Defender's Window should have been fitted
entirely in the workshop, colored glass laid into a sturdy lead frame on the surface of a
whitewashed table. Now Rani could place the acrid smell she thought she had
imagined—Morada had lit a brazier to heat the lead and bend it to her needs. Such a menial
task was far beneath an instructor, especially an instructor as famed as Morada. And Rani,
having witnessed Morada humbling herself to an apprentice's job, was certain to be
penalized.