"Cornwell, Bernard - Vagabond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornwell Bernard)

Vagabond

by Bernard Cornwell. Part one. england October 1346.

Arrows on the hill.

It was October, the time of the year's dying when cattle were being
slaughtered before winter and when the northern winds brought
a promise of ice The chestnut leaves had turned golden, the beeches
were trees of flame and the oaks were made from bronze. Thomas
of Hookton, with his woman, Eleanor, and his friend, Father Hobbe,
came to the upland farm at dusk and the farmer refused to open
his door, but shouted through the wood that the travellers could
sleep in the byre. Rain rattled on the mouldering thatch. Thomas
led their one horse under the roof that they shared with a woodpile,
six pigs in a stout timber pen and a scattering of feathers where a
hen had been plucked. The feathers reminded Father Hobbe that
it was Saint Gallus's day and he told Eleanor how the blessed saint,
coming home in a winter's night, had found a bear stealing his
dinner. He told the animal off!" Father Hobbe said. He gave it a
right talking-to, he did, and then he made it fetch his firewood."
I've seen a picture of that," Eleanor said. Didn't the bear become
his servant?"
That's because Gallus was a holy man," Father Hobbe explained.
Bears wouldn't fetch firewood for just anyone! Only for a holy
man.
A holy man," Thomas put in, who is the patron saint of hens."
Thomas knew all about the saints, more indeed than Father Hobbe.
Why would a chicken want a saint?" he enquired sarcastically.
Gallus is the patron of hens?" Eleanor asked, confused by
Thomas's tone. Not bears?"
Of hens," Father Hobbe confirmed. Indeed of all poultry."
But why?" Eleanor wanted to know.
 Because he once expelled a wicked demon from a young girl."
Father Hobbe, broad-faced, hair like a stickleback's spines, peasant-
born, stocky, young and eager, liked to tell stories of the blessed
saints. A whole bundle of bishops had tried to drive the demon
out," he went on, and they had all failed, but the blessed Gallus
came along and he cursed the demon. He cursed it! And it screeched
in terror" Father Hobbe waved his hands in the air to imitate the
evil spirit's panic, and then it fled from her body, it did, and it
looked just like a black hen, a pullet. A black pullet."
I've never seen a picture of that," Eleanor remarked in her
accented English, then, gazing Out through the byre door, but I'd
like to see a real bear carrying firewood," she added wistfully.
Thomas sat beside her and stared into the wet dusk, which was
hazed by a small mist. He was not sure it really was Saint Gallus's day
for he had lost his reckoning while they travelled. Perhaps it was
already Saint Audrey's day? It was October, he knew that, and he
knew that one thousand, three hundred and forty-six years had