"Gene Wolfe - Queen v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

Speaking for the first time, the smaller of the two said, "We have come to take her to the coronation."

"Well." The richest man cleared his throat. "She is a, er, um, descendant of the royal line. I had forgotten.
However..."

"However?"

He coughed. "However, a great many people are, and she has little with which to make you welcome."

"A little oil," the old woman said. "Some flour."
"So why don't I, ah, provide a bit of food? I could have my servants bring something, and dine with you
myself." Suddenly unsure, he looked at the old woman. "Would that be all right?"

"I would like it," the old woman assured him.

When his servants had spread a cloth for them and loaded her small table with dishes, he dismissed them
and sat down. "I don't know that all this is good," he said. "Likely some of it won't be. But some of it's
bound to be good."

"Do you want to go now?" the smaller traveler asked the old woman. "Or would you rather eat first? It's
up to you."

She smiled. "Is it a long way?"

The taller said, "Very long indeed. The place is very far from here."

"Then I would like to eat first." She prayed over the food the richest man had provided, and as he
listened to her it came to him that he had never heard such prayers before, and then that he had never
heard prayer at all. He was like a man who had seen only bad coin all his life, he thought, and after a
great many years receives a purse of real silver, fresh from the mint.

"That is true," the taller said when the old woman had finished her prayer, "but food is good, too." It
seemed to the richest man that this had been said in answer to his thought, though he could not be sure.

"I was about to say that I never expected to go to a coronation," the old woman told the smaller, smiling,
"but now that I think about it, I realize it isn't really true. I used to dream that I'd see my son's
coronation--that my son would be a king, and someday I would see him crowned. It was silly of me."

"Her son was a teacher," the richest man explained.

They ate olives, bread, and mutton and drank wine.

"You won't be leaving in the morning, I hope?" The richest man had discovered that he did not want them
to go; he would suggest they sleep in his house, as he had first proposed. They could rejoin the old
woman in the morning.

"No," the taller said.

"That's good. You must be tired, since you've come a long way. You really ought to stay here for a
fortnight or more recruiting your strength. This is an interesting part of the country, agriculturally and