"Gardner Dozois - Fairy Tale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

In fact, except for a glimpse of her step-mother lying down in a darkened
room with a wet cloth over her eyes, seen when Eleanor sneaked cautiously into the
house late the previous evening, Eleanor never saw her step-mother or her
step-sisters again.
The Prince had his hunt organized and moving by noon, pretty early for a
Prince, especially a mammothly hung-over one, which shows you how serious he
was about revenge. Fortunately for Eleanor, she was used to rising at the crack of
dawn, so she got the jump on him.
In fact, she hadnтАЩt slept at all that night, but had spent the night with plans and
preparations. She didnтАЩt know about the slipper-sniffing dogs, of course, but she
knew that this was a small enough town that the Prince could find her eventually if he
wanted to badly enough, and she was shrewd enough to guess that he would.
So by the time the sky was lightening in the east, and the birds were twittering
in the branches of the trees in the wet gray dawn (perhaps arguing about whether
pecking out the eyes of EleanorтАЩs step-sisters was really a good use of their time),
Eleanor was out the door with a coarse burlap sack in which sheтАЩd secreted a few
hunks of bread and cheese, and what was left of her fatherтАЩs silver service, which
usually resided in a locked highboyтАФthe key for which was kept somewhere that
Eleanor wasnтАЩt supposed to know about.
Her next stop was to intercept Casimir on his way to the glass foundry and
talk faster and more earnestly than sheтАЩd ever had in her life, for sheтАЩd suddenly
realized that although she still wanted to get out, she didnтАЩt want to go without him.
What she said to convince him, weтАЩll never know. Perhaps he wasnтАЩt all that
difficult to convince; having no family and only minimal prospects, he had little to
lose here himself. Perhaps heтАЩd wanted to run away with her all along, but was too
shy to ask.
Whatever she said, it worked. He slipped back into his room to retrieve from
under a loose floorboard a small amount of money heтАЩd been able to saveтАФperhaps
against the day he could convince Eleanor to marry himтАФand then they were off.
By now, everybody in town knew about the slipper and the hunt for the
Mystery Girl, and you could already hear the hounds baying in the distance.
They escaped from town by hiding in a dung cartтАФEleanorтАЩs idea, to kill her
scent.
After scrubbing in a fast-moving stream, while she shyly hid her breasts from
him and he pretended not to look, they set off on foot across the countryside,
walking the back roads to avoid pursuit, hitching rides in market-bound farmerтАЩs
carts, later catching a narrow-gauge train that started and stopped, stopped and
started, sometimes, for no apparent reason, sitting motionless for hours at tiny
deserted stations where weeds grew up through the tracks and dogs slept on their
backs on the empty sun-drenched platforms, all four legs in the air. In this manner,
they inched their way across Europe, slowly running through CasimirтАЩs small store
of cash, living on black bread, stale cheese, and sour red wine.
In Hamburg, they sold EleanorтАЩs fatherтАЩs silver to buy passage on a ship
going to the United States, and some crudely-forged identity papers. Before they
were allowed aboard with their questionable papers, Eleanor had to blow the
harbormaster, kneeling before him on the rough plank floor of his office, splinters
digging into her knees, while he jammed his thick dirty cock that smelled like a dead
lizard into her mouth, and she tried not to gag.
Casimir never found out; there were some of the harbormasterтАЩs companions
who would have preferred for him to pay their unofficial passage fee rather than her,