"Cross CHILDREN Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

Cross CHILDREN Walk
Esther M. Friesner

"And how was your work day, dear?" Garth asked his wife. He meant well.

"You know how it was!" Zoli flung her spoon down into the dish of Seven Berry Surprise pudding. Sugary globs splattered everywhere. "Nothing's the same since the water-dragon disappeared. No excitement, no adventure. I spend my days hoping someone will fall in, just so I could rescue them, but the Iron River's so sluggish it'd be as thrilling as fishing kittens out of a washbasin. I hate my job!"

"For Gnut's sake, Zoli, it's not like anyone's forcing you to be a crossing guard."

As soon as the words escaped his lips, Garth regretted them. He clamped his hands over his mouth, but too late. He'd done the unthinkable: He'd spoken his mind to his wife. He was doomed.

Zoli rested one still-muscular arm on the dinner table and leaned towards him with that look in her eye. He knew that look. It was the same one he'd seen when they'd first met, right before she decapitated the Great Ogre of Limpwater, thereby saving Garth's bacon.

"Well," she said in a deceptively soft voice. "And have we, perhaps, forgotten why I became a crossing guard in the first place?"

"No, dear," Garth mumbled. "It was the only job for you in this town." He did not add Besides keep house. He knew better. He'd been married to Zoli for twenty years, but he still recalled how she'd dealt with the Great Ogre, and he was still very much attached to his bacon.

"Oh, so you do pay attention. And why is it that I, Zoli of the Brazen Shield, have no other job opportunities?"

"BecauseЧbecause you scare people hereabouts."

"So I do. Which means no one in this dratted little backwater will employ me for labor befitting a grown woman. I've seen the blacksmith and the carter and the rest all eyeing the strength of my arms and back, but I know what they're thinking: 'I'd love to have her toil for me, but if it doesn't work out, where will I ever find the balls to fire her?' That is what they say of me, isn't it?"

"Nearly." Garth had indeed overheard his fellow townsmen discuss Zoli's unexploited strength in those very words, with one exception: They didn't worry about where to find the balls to fire her so much as where they'd find their balls after they fired her. So far the most popular theoretical answer that had come up during open debate at the Crusty Boar was "Up a tree." "Down your throat" ran a close second.

Zoli tilted her chair back and swung her feet up to rest among the dinner dishes. Old habits died hard, and most of hers had been formed in the barrack room, the war camp, and the forbidden temples of half a dozen assorted snake gods. "So I am a crossing guard, for want of any better employment, because I fell in love with you and you insisted on retiring here."

"It's my home town," Garth defended himself. "Anyway, you made me retire and settle down when you got pregnant!"

"Are you saying it's my fault I'm unhappy?" Zoli had that look in her eye again. Garth shut up fast. "It was different when the kids were small," she continued. "But now they're grown and gone it's either mind the ford or go mad with boredom." She sat up straight and began chunking her dagger into the tabletop slowly, methodically, and with a dull viciousness born of deep frustration. "Why did the dragon have to vanish? While he was here, the townsfolk respected me because I protected their brats. But now? Kids learn from their parents. Some of them lob spitballs at me, others make snide remarks about how tight my armor fits. Which it does, but they don't have to say so."

Garth came around the table to stand behind his wife, his hands automatically falling to the task of massaging tension from her shoulders. "You know, sweetheart, maybe the problem isn't that you're a crossing guard, but that you're a school crossing guard."

"Tell me about it," she grumbled.

"I could have a word with Mayor Eyebright, get you a transfer to the toll bridge."

"Like that would be so much more exciting." She shrugged off his kneading hands impatiently and stuck a heaping spoonful of pudding in her mouth.

Garth frowned. "I'm trying to help. On the bridge, you wouldn't have to deal with those snotty kids."

Again Zoli slammed her spoon into the pudding, this time splattering herself and her husband, except she was too worked up to notice. "When have you ever known me to run from any battle?" she demanded. "Even one for these yokels' respect? I may have let my membership in the Swordsisters' Union lapse, but I've still got my professional standards. I will not surrender!" This said, she flopped back down into her chair and ate what little Seven Berry Surprise pudding was left in her dish.

And I will never again ask how your day was, Garth thought as he too resumed his seat and tucked into his dessert. They finished their meal in silence.


Meanwhile, at the far end of town, Mayor Eyebright was enjoying his own dinner while at the same time doing what he did best, namely ignoring his wife and seven children. His evening monologue droned on and on, not only between mouthfuls of food but straight through them.

"Oh, what a day I've had!" he sighed, stuffing half a slice of bread into his cheek and keeping it there while he talked. "There was a terrible dust-up at the Overford Academy, a faculty meeting that ended in a scuffle and eviction. They actually summoned the town patrol! Why a bunch of wizards can't police themselves . . . I mean, we're paying them more than enough to teach our children, so why can't they hire their own security force instead of coming running to me every time there's a body wants booting into the cold-and-cruel? Do they think the patrol works for free? Those bloodsuckers charge the council extra for hazardous duty, which includes ejecting wizards. They claim that it takes five men working as a team to subdue one wizard. Five! A likely story. And what was it all about, I ask you? Tenure. Bah! Why should a frowzy bookworm be guaranteed a job for life? I say that the more of 'em get yanked off the academic titty, the better men they'll be."