"Elgin,.Suzette.Haden.-.Ozark.-.01.-.Twelve.Fair.Kingdoms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

afford but a Rent-a-Mule. And then it might of been that the
mangy thing was meant to make us think that, and it might of
been that if we so much as jiggled that baby we'd blow the
whole churchyardЧAND the babyЧacross the county line.
We're not much for taking chances with babies, I'm proud to
say, and we weren't about to be hasty. The way to do it was to
find the Magician that'd set the Spell, or whatever it was, and
make it clear that we intended to know, come hell or high
water, and keep on making it clear till we got told. Until then,
that baby would just have to stay in the cedar tree with the
squirrels and the chitterbirds and the yellowjays.

Vine of Motley carried on a good deal, doing her family no
credit at all, but she was only thirteen and it her first baby, and
allowances were made. Besides, I wasn't all that proud of my
own self and my own family at that moment.

Five suspicious continental delegations I had coming to
Castle Brightwater in less than three months, to celebrate the
Grand Jubilee of a confederation they didn't trust much more

4 SUZETTE HAPEN ELGIN

now than they had two hundred years ago. Every one of them
suspecting a plot behind every door and under every bedstead
and seeing Spells in die coffee cups and underneath their
saddles and, for all I knew, in their armpits. And I was
proposing that they'd all be safe hereЧwhen I couldn't keep
one little innocent pointy-headed baby safe in my own church
on a Solemn Day?

It strained the limits of me imagination somewhat more than
somewhat, and there was no way of keeping it quiet. They'd be
having picnics under the tree where that baby hung in his pretty
bubble and beaming the festivities out on the comsets before
suppertime, or my name wasn't Responsible of Brightwater

In the excitement we left the Solemn Service unfinished, and
it took three Spells and a Charm to clear that up later on, not to
mention the poor Reverend going through the service again to
an empty church reeking mightily of garlic and asafetida. But
the clear imperative right men was a family meeting; and we
moved in as orderly a fashion as was possible (given the
behavior of Vine of Motley) back to die Castle, where I turned
all the out-family over to the staff to feed and cosset and called
everyone else at once to the Meetingroom.

The table in the Meetingroom was dusty, and I distinctly saw
a spiderweb in a far window, giving me yet another clue to the
competency of my staff and strongly tempting me to waste a