"Judith Tarr - Remedia Amoris" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tarr Judith)

up by Volaterrae, and I leave the ewes alone. Nymphs are better. And Bacchantes.” I
showed her my best smile. “And witches?”
She shuddered. “He is dreadful,” she said.
Crone nodded with too much satisfaction. “And he profaned our rite.” She
stopped prodding my jewels, for which I was properly grateful, but her expression
was nothing to comfort a poor lonely Faun. She turned round toward the altar. In a
moment, so did Maiden.
They had their backs to me. I thought of crawling away. The best I managed
was a flop onto my face and a scrabble in the grass. My tail hurt. My head hurt
worse.
The three weird women raised their voices. Most of it was nonsense, and
some was no language I ever knew, but enough was decent speech that I knew I’d
not been forgotten. They were cursing me, as Mopsus would say, right proper.
Starting with the tip of my left horn and working down to the point of my right hoof,
with stops between. Somehow I was standing upright, and that meant all of me.
Pipes in hand, too. Just about ready to play.
The marching-drums in my head had stopped. So had the throb in my tail. I
felt… cool. And smooth. And chiseled clean. Marmoreal, for a fact.
“So mote it be,” said Crone. She stood in front of me. She was smiling. I
would have closed my eyes if I could. That was nothing I’d be doing, for a while.
“Be so,” Crone said. “Be bound forever as the stonebrain that you are.”
“It’s only just,” said Mother, “for a ravisher of maidens.”
Maidens! I would have howled, if they’d left me with a voice. Those were
good lusty Bacchantes, and fine chases they led, too, and all the Rites in order, and
if a lad was new to it, then they’d help him along.
But Mother never heard me. “Stand for all of time as you stand now, with
your phallus for a luck piece.”
“Perhaps we should have made him a fountain,” mused Crone. “He might
have been more entertaining.”
“Oh,” said Maiden, and her voice could melt my heart, even turned to stone.
“Oh, the poor thing. Were we too severe, do you think? Shouldn’t we just let him
stay for a while, and then let him go? He only did what Fauns are born to do.”
“And who was first to curse him for it?” Mother inquired.
Maiden blushed and hung her head. “I let my temper get the better of it. I
confess it. You helped me,” she said. “Don’t say you didn’t.”
“Very well,” said Crone, and she was impatient, but even she was hardly
proof against Maiden. “A witch who weakens her curse with codicils is a fool, but
we are all born fools. You, Faun! For this Maiden’s sake—and do remember it, if
you are capable of such refinement—I offer you one escape. Marble you are, and
marble you shall be, and your fate shall be to watch unsleeping, until two mortals
shall come before you, and show themselves true lovers.”
“None of this reckless ravishment,” Mother said, “or she-wolf with her flesh
for hire. True love, and true lovers, and goodwill toward you who watch.”
“This is excessive!” Maiden protested. “Love comes, and comes true, but
goodwill for a marble Faun?”
“There’s no changing it now,” said Crone. “It’s spoken and it’s done. When
true love comes, he shall be free.”
Maiden sighed, but she had no more objections. I had a worldful, and a
tongue as hopeless-heavy as only stone can be.
“Iron’s worse,” said Crone. She rubbed my best man—for luck, what else?