"R. A. MacAvoy - L2 - King of the Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

the king’s temper and Powl’s obstinacy.”
“... In time to save the king, you mean.”
She shrugged, her flat shoulder blades against the ground. “To save a king and kill a duke. Whatever.
The other time I sold her I was honest about it, but she stole herself, and came to me bloody-nosed,
dragging a chain cavesson. I heard later that she broke the buyer’s head for him.”
Arlin spoke with very little sympathy for the man, and she added, “I should have had her bred. Now
there’s nothing to remember.”
I looked at my paramour, stretched out in all her length on the carpet, skin white against the dark wool
shirt which was all she wore, and I thought of her father. “No matter, Arlin. Children are not much like
their parents, anyway.”
Arlin peered at me appraisingly with her cloudy gray eyes, but she let me have the last word.
There are three problems that dominate life for the homeless: staying warm, staying dry, and staying fed.
The season took care of the first and the second, but it was up to me to supply the victuals.
First I raided the oratory garden—the garden I myself had planted and kept. It was an awkward time of
year for vegetables, for the greenstuffs had already bolted in the heat and the filling crops of later
summer—horsebeans, roots, and all the sundry grains—had not properly headed yet. I found that a large
number of the parsnips and turnips I had planted were already taken out half-sized, and so I sneaked into
the old pantry to dip into the grain stores.
Here had been further depredation, more than one would expect, considering that only five people
besides ourselves had been staying in the oratory. I heard voices beyond the wooden door, and they
were very merry. Peeking through the lock-hole, I found four of our five seated around the refectory
table, with an assortment of jugs and bottles scat-tered about. I did not need to put my nose to the hole
to scent raw wine and beer.
This gave me to think. We Irad lived in the oratory as beggars among beggars since the first one knocked
on our door in April and found us scrubbing old mildew from the windows. At least we had announced
the place to be a haven given by the king to the homeless (true enough as far as that went). We had lived
soberly in all, since neither Arlin nor I have a great lust after food and we were usually cooking. And
since there were always more mouths than anticipated, and we were conscious that the sacks of
provision which followed us from court to the borders of Norwess were char-ity. One had better not
become too used to living, on charity.
The fact that our “fellows” had squandered their little capital within two days after our departure meant to
me that we had acted more the part of the landlord than we had thought, and that these others felt no
stake in the future of the place.
Well, why should they? Beggars were mobile by nature-, their lives had taught them to take and go. For
them this sour beer might be the equivalent of old wine in crystal.
I excused them, but still I was angry, and so I took bags of flour and of broken oats, and sneaked out
again to snare a rabbit. Since I hate snaring rabbits, I was in a worse mood than ever when I splashed
back to our shelter.
I found Arlin engaged in a short sword dance, and I watched as I skinned the animal. I cannot dance with
Arlin’s grace, though I have danced with Arlin often enough. After this exercise, she had a faint glaze of
sweat over her face, which, would not be the case with Arlin in good health. I made a small, almost
invisible fire, grilled the meat, and made oatcakes while she sat in her open, empty silence: what I call the
belly of the wolf: I was determined not to let her know I had been upset by my visit to our house, and so
I hummed and, mumbled in my work.
I do talk to myself.
The first thing Arlin said to me was “What’s wrong, Zhurrie? Have they made trash of the place
already?”
My expression made her laugh, which was an unex-pected benefit, and she added, “Did they sell all the
grain barrels already?”
“Just the grain out of them,” I answered. “And the par-snips and turnips.”