"Robin McKinley - The Outlaws of Sherwood" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

on his face. There was what appeared to be the remains of a meal spread out around
them; one or two were still chewing, and Robin could smell the sharp tang of the ale
in the small open cask that lounged on the greensward among them.
“A very good day to you, Master Robin,” said Bill, his arms folded across his
negligible chest, the sole of one foot cocked nonchalantly against his tree. “I’m
afraid I can’t suggest that you join our feed—I fear there is little left but crumbs.”
Tom stood up, and Robin recalled that Tom was the only forester his father, who
could see goodness in almost anybody, had called bad. Tom was still grinning; there
were small strings of meat caught between his teeth. He shot the king’s deer for his
own belly whenever he chose, and the Chief Forester looked the other way—so long
as he got a haunch of it. “Perhaps young Robin would like the crumbs—he’s a little
too thin, don’t you think, lads?” He reached out as Robin stood hesitating a few
paces from where Bill leaned against his tree, and seized his arm.
Robin could not stop the spasm of disgust that crossed his face as the man’s
fingers touched him, and he jerked himself free with an unnecessary violence—a
violence that he knew at once had cost him any chance he might have had in
escaping this meeting without some kind of skirmish.
Tom laughed, for he knew it too, and it was what he wanted; and he was pleased
that his prey had proved so easy to bait. He pawed at Robin again, circling the
young man’s upper arm with his thick fingers. “Too thin, eh, lads? Too thin to do a
man’s work as a forester?”
Robin flushed but stood stiffly and said nothing, hoping against his better
judgement that Tom might yet let him pass.
But Tom only stretched out his other hand, and pulled one of Robin’s arrows half
out of the quiver—by the feathers, Robin knew, and he gritted his teeth, for he could
not afford damage to even one of his arrows—and then let it drop again, and Robin
heard the protest of the other stiff pinions as the dropped shaft forced its way
downward. “And certainly too thin and weak to draw a man’s bow like a man.”
He laughed again, and the hot foul wash of his ale-smelling breath over Robin’s
face brought all the young man’s frustrations to a boil. Tom knew as well as he
himself did that he could not easily draw his father’s bow, which was a
hand’s-length longer and better than a stone heavier to pull than the plainer, lighter
bow he carried. He kept his father’s bow in what had been his father’s room,
carefully wrapped and stored against damp and rodent teeth; and occasionally he
took it out and practised with it, when no one was near. But he could not bear it that
this man should gibe at him so, now, and just before anger stopped thought
altogether he said to himself: They are here to trap me—well, let them do their worst.
And then the anger overcame him, and he snarled at his tormentor: “I can draw a
bow as well as you, or any other fat forester who can barely sight down his arrow
for fear of stinging his paunch with the released string.”
 Now Tom let go of Robin and his own face began to flush up with anger, and Bill
dropped his crossed arms and stood warily, and the other four men stopped
chewing and got to their feet. What they thought of doing or might have done Robin
did not know; but anger still darkened his mind and while it did he felt no fear. “If
you choose to doubt me, then I will happily meet you at the Nottingham Fair later
today, for I go now to that place that I may see how I fare at the archery contest.
And I will say that I will shoot far more handsomely than you, whose greasy hands
will let his bow slip, and mayhap his arrow shall pierce the sheriff’s hat where he sits
watching the performance, and then you shall win a prize specially for you, and yet
like not what you might have chosen.”