"02 - Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asprin Robert)

rich merchants' Eastern quarter. It was well past midnight, but she wasn't sure
of the hour because of the cloud-covered sky. The second wife of Shoozh the
spice-importer had borne her fourth infant. Masha had attended to the delivery
personally while Doctor Nadeesh had sat in the next room, the door only half
closed, and listened to her reports. Nadeesh was forbidden to see any part of a
female client except for those normally exposed and especially forbidden to see
the breasts and genitals. If there was any trouble with the birthing, Masha
would inform him, and he would give her instructions.

This angered Masha, since the doctors collected half of the fee, yet were seldom
of any use. In fact, they were usually a hindrance.

Still, half a fee was better than none. What if the wives and concubines of the
wealthy were as nonchalant and hardy as the poor women, who just squatted down
wherever they happened to be when the pangs started and gave birth unassisted?
Masha could not have supported herself, her two daughters, her invalid mother,
or her lazy alcoholic husband. The money she made from doing the more affluent
women's hair and from her tooth-pulling and manufacture of false teeth in the
marketplace wasn't enough. But midwifery added the income that kept her and her
family just outside hunger's door.

She would have liked to pick up more money by cutting men's hair in the
marketplace, but both law and ancient custom forbade that.

Shortly after she had burned the umbilical cord of the new-born to ensure that
demons didn't steal it and had ritualistically washed her hands, she left
Shoozh's house. His guards, knowing her, let her through the gate without
challenge, and the guards of the gate to the eastern quarters also allowed her
to pass. Not however without offers from a few to share their beds with her that
night.

'I can do much better than that sot of a husband of yours!' one said.

Masha was glad that her hood and the daricness prevented the guards from seeing
her burning face by the torchlight. However, if they could have seen that she
was blushing with shame, they might have been embarrassed. They would know then
that they weren't dealing with a brazen slut of the Maze but with a woman who
had known better days and a higher position in society than she now held. The
blush alone would have told them that.

What they didn't know and what she couldn't forget was that she had once lived
in this walled area and her father had been an affluent, if not wealthy,
merchant.

She passed on silently. It would have made her feel good to have told them her
past and then ripped them with the invective she'd learned in the Maze. But to
do that would lower her estimate Х of herself.

Though she had her own torch and the means for lighting it in the cylindrical
leather case on her back, she did not use them. It was better to walk unlit and