"Brown,.Mary.-.Unicorn's.Ring.2.-.1994.-.Pigs.Don't.Fly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Mary)

same titillation as clients. "After all, once you're married he's yours: you
will need excuses more than encouragements."
When the pages of my book grew to a dozen, then twenty, I threaded them together
and begged a piece of soft leather from the tanner for a cover and a piece of
silk from Mama to wrap it in. A heated poker provided the singed title: My Boke.
At first Mama had laughed at my scribblings, as sne called them, for she could
not read or write herself, but once she realized I was treasuring her little
gems of wisdom and could read them back to her, she even gave me an occasional
coin or two for more materials, and reminded me constantly of her forethought in
providing me with such a good education.
"What with your father's dowry and my teachings, you will be able to choose any
man in the kingdom," she said.
And that was perhaps the only cause of friction between us.
A secure, protected, industrious childhood slipped almost unnoticed into
puberty, but I made the mistake one day of asking Mama how long it would be
before she found me the promised husband, to be met with a coldness, a hurt
withdrawal I had not anticipated. "Are you so ready to leave me alone after all
I have done for you?" I kept quiet for two more years, but then asked, timidly,
again. I was unprepared for the barrage of blows. Her rage was terrible. She
beat me the colors of the rainbow, shrieking that I was the most ungrateful
child
PIGS DON'T FLY
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in the world and didn't deserve the consideration I had been shown. How could I
think of leaving her?
Of course I sobbed and cried and begged her on my knees to forgive me my
thoughtlessness, and after a while she consented for me to cut out and sew a new
robe for her, so I knew I was back in favor. Even so, as year slipped into year
without change, I began to wonder just wnen my life would alter, when I would
have a home and husband of my own, as she had promised.
And then, suddenly, everything changed in a single day.
CHAPTER TWO
That morning Mama was uncharacteristically edgy and irritable. She complained of
having eaten something that disagreed with her, and although I made an infusion
of mint leaves and camomile, she still seemed restless and uneasy.
"I shall go back to bed," she announced. "And I don't want you clattering
around. Have you finished all your outside jobs?" I had. "Then you can go down
to the village and fetch some more salt. We're not without, but will need more
before winter sets in. Wait outside and I'll find a coin or two... ."
This was always the ritual. Our store of coins, which Mama always took from
passing trade, were hidden away, and only she knew the whereabouts. I didn't see
the need for such secrecy, but she explained that I was such a silly, gullible
child that I might give away the hiding place. I couldn't see how, as I scarcely
spoke to anyone, but she insisted.
I picked up an empty crock and dawdled down the path towards the gate. It was a
beautiful morning, and I was in no hurry to go. I hated these visits to the
village, but luckily only made them when there were goods we could not barter
forЧsalt, oil, tallow, wine, spices. I
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PIGS DON'T FLY