"Bard's Tale 08 - Curse of the Black Heron - Holly Lisle UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bard's Tale)

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CURSE OF THE BLACK HERON
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright й 1998 by Bill Fawcett. The Bard's Tale is a registered trademark of Electronic Arts. The Bard's Tale characters and descriptions are the sole property of Electronic Arts and are used by permission.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471
ISBN: 0-671-87868-9 Cover art by Tom Kidd First printing, March 1998
Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020
Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH Printed in the United States of America
Chapter One
I remember the beginning of the end of my world clearly, but not for the reasons anyone would usually associate with remembering such a day. Early morning dragged me from my bed, and the voice of the herald from the capital drew me out of Birdie's cool house into the town square of Blackwarren and into the already-sticky heat of the early summer day, where I stood beside my friend, Giraud dar Falcannes, and listened to the latest news from the city, shouted by a lovely young herald backed up by a contingent of cold-eyed enforcers.
"In this the Century of the Constellation Baragar the Hunter, in the year of Ten Firehawk and the season of Merroell, on the fifth day of the month of Tassetti, which We rename Varelle in our honor, WeЧ Varelle dar Kothia SurdostiЧdeclare that Salgestis Dargoman the Usurper has been cast down, and executed, and that We have lifted his head on a pike in Greffon's Great Square as proof and testament of Our intentions to all such usurpers." The herald sat astride her black horse, dressed all in royal red and empire blue, with a crest on her tabard that I'd never
seen and a weighted scroll in her hands that gleamed at the edges with the sheen of real gold. She glared down at all of us who stood listening to her decree, daring us to dispute her.
I leaned over and whispered to Giraud, "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Salgestis the rightful king? And isn't Varelle dar Kothia Surdosti the usurper?"
Giraud grinned at me. "Mmm. Well, she was until she won," he whispered back, "but it would be awfully impolitic of us to remember that now, wouldn't it? And possibly hard on our necks, Isbetta. Never forget that the winners get to call the losers anything they want."
The herald spelled out Varelle dar Kothia Surdosti's decrees to usЧthat she would be empress, titled Gloriana Majeste of all the lands of Terosalle; that her capital city would be Greffon; that she would give pardon and favor to all who acknowledged her as empress and would execute those who did not, and with them their every relation through ten generations; and so on, and so on. The herald's reading made for an impressive decree, but I must confess that discovering I had a new ruler in Greffon interested me less than discovering I owned a new sheep would have. The fact is, I was about to graduate to journeyman status and be admitted to the Weavers' Guild, and my foster mother would, upon my graduation, owe me a sheep as a giftЧthe first of what I hoped to turn into an impressive weavers flock. The sheep was both symbol and material contributor to my future. Whereas in Blackwarren the doings of the High Court were so distant both in leagues and in their effects on our lives that they didn't even make for interesting gossip.
I rolled my eyes. "This going to make any difference for you and His Lordship?"
"Oh, sure. TheЧ" Giraud made a face "Чthe Gloriana Majeste is bound to want an increase in taxes to fill her empty war chests. And no doubt she'll want
Da to ride to her county seat in Kingston Bylake with my brothers to declare undying allegiance. Shouldn't be much trouble for him otherwise, though. If he hadn't been in high stink with King Salgestis, we wouldn't have been in stuck here in Blackwarren in the first place, lording it over the peat boggers and the blackflies."
"You don't think you'll have to ride to Kingston Bylake, too?"
"Nah. I'm third tit, Izza. With Storrin and Baylar ahead of me in succession, I don't even get invited to the dances in Straje."
"And we both know how you love to dance."
Giraud snickered. "I won't complain about my place in life. I'm as happy as I'm going to be, living in Blackwarren. And maybe with Varelle on the throne Da will win a place of favor and we'll be able to move closer to the capital and get a bit of culture from time to time."
I recall finding that possibility unlikely. "You think she'll grant your father new lands? But he didn't support her."
Giraud saw it as less of a problem, but then, he was always much more the optimist than I. Being lord's son instead-of poor foster-daughter to a peat crofter will have that effect on your outlook on life. Giraud said, "He didn't support Salgestis, either. He wasn't crazy. From one day to the next you couldn't tell who would win their fight, or if both of them would lose and the damned Liedans would come sweeping down from the north by land and sea and annex us; and Blackwarren's so far from everything Da didn't need to make any passionate declarations of loyalty. Nobody even remembers we're up here, most times. He just kept his head low and kept it on his shoulders that way."
The herald had finished reading the new empress's decree, and sat rolling her scroll, preparatory to
moving on to the next town ... or considering our position relative to the rest of civilization, perhaps just heading home. I said, "That's it, then. The news of the world beyond comes and goes, and here in Blackwarren, nothing changes. Nothing at all."
Giraud rested his hand on my shoulder as we turned to head to my craft-masters shop. "That isn't true for you, Izza."
I had to smile. Giraud understood my reasons for anticipating my release from Birdie's care, and was friend enough to be excited with me. "You're right," I agreed. "Finally, change comes."
"How many more days?"
I closed my eyes and pretended to count, but actually the number of days I had left in my apprenticeship might as well have been carved straight through my flesh into bone, I knew it so well. "Nineteen," I said.
Giraud laughed. "One for every year you've lived. How perfect."
"I still have two years as journeyman weaver after that, before I can become a master and set up my own shop. It isn't as if I can leave Blackwarren right away."
"But no more Birdie, right?"
I nodded vehemently. That was, as far as I could see, the greatest advantage in achieving journeyman status. "Exactly right. No more Birdie. I've been asking around, and I've already found a place living with the Widow dar Nothellin. She'll give me bed and board in exchange for three pence a month, and one bolt of fine blue cloth winter and summer."
"That's less than Birdie's taking."
"Birdie takes everything I make, just because she can." The anger I felt at that fact was, for once, tempered with satisfaction. "But only for nineteen more days."
Giraud jumped onto the boardwalk that began where the cobblestone street became dirt and mud, and offered me his hand. I took itЧI would have been rude to refuse, even though I was quite capable of swinging myself up onto the walk, and bounded upward. Giraud said, "I still don't know why the old bitch didn't send you off to Watchowl Bards' Keep to train as a bard. You've the voice, and I think a touch of the magic, too."
"You think so, do you?"
Giraud smiled, but his eyes were serious. "You've certainly enchanted me."
I tried to laugh, but the old bitterness came through too clearly and I stopped myself. I forced a lightness that I didn't feel and said, "But that's the way with apprenticeships. Our fosters choose what we shall be, and leave us the quandary of becoming good at what they choose." I pretended to shrug it off. "My parents wouldn't have fostered me with Birdie if they hadn't agreed with her that weaving would be the right path for me."
I was not, after all, alone in complaining about my foster-mother, or about the hardness of my life. Every other weaver-apprentice who studied with Marda dar Ellai complained, too. Of chores in the evening, of poor meals, of hard beds. I was alone in other ways, though. I alone came to Blackwarren not from a smaller town but from the greatest city of them all, Greffon. I alone recalled a life that was not bounded by the rising and falling of the sun, that was described neither by the movements of sheep and cattle through the pastures nor by the growing and harvesting of crops, nor by the cutting and drying of peat. I recalled the life I'd led as daughter of the king's own bardЧ I'd been a child with free run of court with friends up to and including the king's youngest daughter. I'd met Salgestis on occasion. I'd sung for him onceЧ some trippery song about what a wonderful king he
was. I recall that he'd been charmed, for I'd written the dreadful bit of doggerel myself, and had gone on to tell him that someday I would be a Bard like my father. Bard with a capital "B," not bard-little-b without the magic. And he'd clapped me on the shoulder and told me what a good bard I should be, too.
I was alone in other ways. Of all Blackwarren's fosterlings, only I never received a visit from my parents or an invitation to return home for the Long Holiday. I alone lived exclusively with my foster-mother the year round, never so much as receiving a letter or an Ammas Day gift from my true parents. My fellow apprentices had endless theories about this, all of them ugly and hateful to one degree or another. Either I was an embarrassing bastard child, or my parents were mad and had been locked away, or I had done something in the past that was so terrible my parents had banished me from their lives, or I was an orphan from nowhere taken in by my foster-mother and that I was, to boot, a dreadful liar who made up stories about Greffon and my life before in order to "give myself airs."
Giraud didn't believe any of the stories, and sympathized with my plight as a fellow outcast from a better life. He was old enough to remember when his father had been in favor at court, and to wish for the return of those days. For him, the Gloriana Majeste Varelle represented a possible door back.
Giraud had been considering my remark about my parents fostering me with Birdie. "I wonder," he said.