"Bard's Tale 04 - The Chaos Gate - Josepha Sherman UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bard's Tale)

"That's what we want," Kevin told Naitachal and dismounted, tossing the reins to a stable lad. Suddenly overwhelmed by the need for this whole business to be over, he strode fiercely forwardЧ
"Hey! Watch it!" a woman's voice snapped. Kevin, caught off balance, staggered on one foot for a moment, struggling not to fall. "Look out, you clumsy oaf!" the woman shrilled. "You're stepping all over them!"
With a wild, graceless lunge, he finally recovered his footing and glanced down to find himself standing in the middle of an herb garden, some of the tender green sprouts crushed under his boots. Ayoungwoman in the worn, plain, comfortable clothes of a gardener was kneeling to one side, trowel in hand. She was no great beauty: her face was red from work and sun and streaked with dirt, unkempt strands of hair were straggling out from beneath the faded blue scarf covering her headЧ
And she was glaring up at him with undisguised rage. Embarrassed, Kevin began, "I'm sorryЧ"
"You should be sorry, you lout!"
It was bad enough to lose dignity in a fight with a gatekeeper. He was not going to let aЧa common gardener yell at him like this. "It was an accident," Kevin said carefully. "Besides, these are just plants, andЧ"
"Hmph." Studiously ignoring him, she tried to straighten the seedlings he'd crushed. To his surprise,
Kevin found himself staring at her hands. These weren't the elegant white fingers of a lady who'd never done a stitch of work in her life, but underneath all the dirt they were charmingly graceful and amazingly gentleЧ
Far gentler than her tongue. "'Just plants,'" she muttered. "Say they're just plants' when you've got a wound that won't heal and there isn't any comfrey to soothe it because some stupid idiot of aЧ" She glanced sharply up at him again, blatantly disapproving of his travel-stained, rumpled selfЧ "Of a whatever you areЧ"
"A minstrel."
"Good for you. It took me weeks to get some of these seedlings started, and here you come along andЧ"
"For the last time," Kevin snapped, "it was an accident. If you'd put a fence around the whole thing, this wouldn't have happened!"
"Hah! You'd probably have fallen over it!" Her eyes were the most astonishing shade, the exact indigo he'd seen in summer thunderclouds. Gwenlyn's eyes were blue, too, at least according to the stylized miniature that had started this mess, but they couldn't possibly be this wild, this fierce. . ..
"What are you staring at?" the young woman snarled, and her eyes lost all their appeal for him. "Go on, get out of here!"
"Gladly!" Gods, what sort of place was this? Were all the servants in the castle this obnoxious? And if so, what oh what could the count and his daughter be like?
"If you've finished arguing with the help," Naitachal murmured smoothly, suddenly at his side, "follow me. I've arranged lodging for us. Tonight we are to sing before the count and his court."
"Wonderful," Kevin muttered.
"There's still time to give up this masquerade." "No!"
The dining hall was as crowded as his own, lined with rows of trestle tables covered with white linen and set with bowls and ewers of dully gleaming pewter and brighter silver. Not ostentatiously wealthy, Kevin thought, but wealthy. Fresh rushes rustled underfoot, giving off a clean, herbal scent as he and Naitachal, the elven Bard still so shrouded in his cloak and long-sleeved tunic none of his telltale dark skin could be seen, wormed their way through to a place at one of the lower tables. Sharing the table with them was a mixed lot of servants, merchants and entertainers, one of whom kept nervously juggling whatever bits of bread came his way and dropping most of them.
"I hope no one lets him too near any knives," Naitachal murmured wryly.
Kevin hardly noticed. He was too intent on staring at the two blue-canopied chairs there at the far end of the hall. "Where are they?" he asked uneasily.
"Where's who?" a red-bearded servant sitting to his left asked without much interest "Ah, you mean Count Trahern and his daughter! They'll be here shortly, never fear." He looked Kevin up and down. "You a minstrel, huh? Don't worry. You'E get fed proper before you have to perform." A blare of trumpets broke into the last of his words, and the servant glanced casually up, adding, "See? Here they come now."
Kevin looked, looked again, and nearly shot to his feet in shock. Only Naitachal's hand clamping firmly about his wrist kept him in his seat, staring wildly at the two elegant figures who'd entered. Count Trahern was a tall, lean, handsome man in his richly blue, gold-embroidered robes, his glossy black hair and beard
dramatically touched by grey. He looked every bit the sort of man about whom ballads should be sung.
But Kevin gave him only one cursory glance. For at the count's side sat a slender, dark-haired young woman, her sleek, silky gown as deeply blue as the count s robes, a woman with the most incredible indigo eyes, visible even at this distance, a woman whoЧ
"Dear gods," Kevin breathed.
Naitachal glanced his way. "What's wrong?"
But Kevin could do nothing but shake his head in silent, dazed disbelief. Though her clean-scrubbed face no longer showed the slightest streak of dirt, though her black hair now flowed smoothly down her back, that finely dressed young woman was none other than the sharp-tongued, shrewish gardener with whom he'd fought.
"No, oh no ..."
With a groan, Kevin hid his head in his hands.
Chapter V Young Love
Head buried in his hands, Kevin moaned, "What am I going to do?"
"Eat," Naitachal said without a trace of sympathy. "Then perform. That is what common minstrels do, isn't it? And we are common minstrels, are we not?"
"Yes, but IЧsheЧIЧ"
"That is the young woman gardener, is it not? The gardener who is also, it appears, Count Traherns daughter. The one with whom you argued so strongly." Naitachal paused, then added with just the faintest touch of delicate elven malice, "My, what strange judgment you humans show."
Kevin looked sharply up at that, glaring at the elf. "How was I to know who she was? You saw what happened. She looked and acted likeЧlike a filthy gardener!"
"Hey," a servant two seats to the right complained, "watch it. I'm a gardener."
"Sorry," Kevin said tightly. "I didn't mean any insult."
He heard the faintest of chuckles from Naitachal. "Awkward situation, isn't it?" There still wasn't much
sympathy in the elven Bard's voice. "The sort of awkwardness that seldom happens to nobility. Only to... common minstrels."
Kevin winced. "You're not going to let me forget my mistake, are you?"
"Minstrelsy wasn't my idea, now, was it?"
"At least she hasn't recognized me yet. I... uh ... don't suppose you'd care to lend me your hood?"
"And reveal to everyone that a Dark Elf sits among them?" Naitachal murmured drily. "Not a chance."
"Ah. No. Of course not." Kevin shook his head ruefully. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"That much seems clear."
"All right, all right, you were right about the whole thing and I was wrong. Naitachal... what am I going to do?"
The bright blue gaze softened slightly. "Why not just go up there and confess the truth to the young lady and her father?"
"How? Without looking like an idiot? More of an idiot than she already thinks me, I mean," Kevin added bitterly. "Besides, you saw what happened earlier between Gwenlyn and me."
"To paraphrase what I said a moment ago, you two didn't exactly seem to be getting along."