"Lackey, Mercedes - Arrows of the Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

"Yes, thirteen," Keldar repeated significantly, "And that is time to think of Marriage."

Talia blanched, feeling as if her heart had stopped. Marriage? Oh, sweet Goddess no!

Keldar seemingly paid no heed to Talia's reaction; a flicker of her eyes betrayed that she'd seen it, but she went callously on with her planned speech. "You're not ready for it, of course, but no girl is. Your courses have been regular for more than a year now, you're healthy amd strong. There's no reason why you couldn't be a mother before the year is out It's more than time you were in a Household as a Wife. Your Honored Father is

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dowering you with three whole fields, so your ponion is quite respectable."

Keldar's faintly sour expression seemed to indicate that she felt Talia's dower to be excessive. The hands clasping the edge of the table before her tightened as the other Wives murmured appreciation of their Husband's generosity.

"Several Elders have already bespoken your Father about you, either as a Firstwife for one of their sons or as an Underwife for themselves. In spite of your unwomanly habits of reading and writing, we've trained you well. You can cook and clean, sew, weave and spin, and you're trustworthy with the littlest littles. You're not up to managing a Household yet, but you won't be called to do that for several years. Even if you go to a young man as his Firstwife, you'll be living in your Husband's Father's Household. So you're prepared enough to do your duty."

Ketdar seemed to feel that she'd said all she needed to, and sat down, hands folded beneath her apron, back ramrod straight. Underwife Isrel waited for her nod of delegation, then took up the thread of the lecture on a daughter's options.

Isrel was easily dominated by Keldar, and Talia had always considered her to be more than a little silly. The Underwife looked to Keldar with calf-like brown eyes for approval of everything she said—nor did she fail to do so now. She glanced at Keldar after every other word she spoke.

"There's advantages to both, you know; being a Firstwife and being an Underwife, I mean. If you're Firstwife, eventually your Husband will start his own Steading and Household, and you'll be First in it But if you're an Underwife, you won't have

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to ever make any decisions. And you'll be in an established Household and Steading—you won't have to scrimp and scant, there won't be any hardships. You won't have to worry about anything except the tasks you're set and bearing your littles. We don't want you to be unhappy, Talia. We want to give you the choice of the life you think you're best suited for. Not the man of course," she giggled nervously, "That would be unseemly, and besides you probably don't know any of them anyway."

"Isrel!" Keldar snapped, and isrel shrank into herself a little. "That last remark was unseemly, and not suited to a girl's ears! Now, child, which shall it be?"

Goddess! Talia wanted to die, to turn into a bird, to sink into the floor—anything but this! Trapped; she was trapped. They'd Marry her off and she'd end up like Nada, beaten every night so that she had to wear high-necked tunics to hide the bruises. Or she'd die like her own mother, worn out with too many babies too quickly. Or even if the impossible happened, and her Husband was kind or too stupid to be a danger, her real life, the tales that were all that made living worthwhile, would all but disappear, for there would be no time for them in the never-ending round of pregnancy and a Wife's duties—

Before she could stop herself, Talia blurted out, "I don't want to be Married at all!"

The little rustlings and stirrings of a group of bored women suddenly ceased, and they became as still as a row of fenceposts, all with disbelief on their faces. Nine identical expressions of shock and dismay stared at Talia from the sides of the

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table. The silence closed down around her like the hand of doom.

"Talia, dear," a soft voice spoke behind her, breaking the terrible silence, and Talia turned with relief to face Father's Mother, who had been sitting unnoticed in the corner. She was one of the few people in Talia's life who never seemed to think that everything she did was wrong. Her kind, faded blue eyes were the only ones in the room not full of accusation. The old woman smoothed one braid of cloud-white hair with age-spotted hands in unconscious habit, as she continued. "May the Mother forgive us, but we never thought to ask you. Have you a vocation? Has the Goddess Called you to her service?1'

Talia had been hoping for a reprieve, but that, if anything, was worse. Talia thought with horror of the one glimpse she'd had of the Temple Cloisters, of the women there who spent their lives in prayer for the souls of the Holderkin. The utterly silent women, who went muffled from head to toe, forbidden to leave, forbidden to speak, forbidden—life!—had horrified her. It was a worse trap than Marriage; the very memory of the Cloisters made her feel as if she was being smothered.

She shook her head frantically, unable to talk around the lump in her throat.

Keldar rose from her place with the scrape of a stool on the rough wooden floor and advanced on the terrified child, who was as unable to move as a mouse between the paws of a cat. Keldar took her shoulders with a grip that bruised as it made escape impossible and shook her till her teeth rattled. "What's wrong1 with you, girl?" she said angrily, "You don't want an Honorable Marriage, you don't want the Peace of the Goddess, what do you want?"