"Esther M. Friesner - Chicks 02 - Did You Say Chicks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

rolled on her side and feltтАж different. Where her slender supple belly had been, capable of all those
enticing ripples hither and yon, she now hadтАж She prodded the soft, bulging mass and essayed a ripple.
Nothing happened. Dorcas thought of her burgeoning bank balanceтАФnot nearly as much as she wanted
to retire onтАФand groaned.

Then she wrapped herself in an uncharacteristic garmentтАФopaque and voluminousтАФand sought the
advice of her plastic wizard.



Mirabel Stonefist had done her best to avoid it, but she'd been snagged by the Finance Committee of the
Ladies Aid & Armor Society. Instead of a pleasant morning in her sister-in-law's garden, watching the
younglings at play, she was spending her off-duty day at the Ladies' Hall, peering at the unpromising
figures on a parchment roll.

"And just after we ordered the new steps the court ladies wanted, they all quit coming,"
Blanche-the-Blade said. "I haven't seen hide nor hair of them for weeksтАФ"

"They'll be back," Krystal said, buffing her fingernails on her fringed doeskin vest. "They still want to
look good, and without our help, they'll soon return to the shapes they had before."

The court ladies, in the fitness craze that followed the repeal of the tax on bronze bras, had asked the
women of the King's Guard how they stayed so trim. In anticipation of a profitable side-line, the Ladies
Aid & Armor Society had fitted up a couple of rooms at the Hall for exercise classes. But unlike the
younger girls, who seemed to like all the bouncing around, the married women complained that sweating
was unseemly.

"What annoys me," Blanche said, "is the way they moan and groan as if it's our fault that they're not in
shape. I personally don't care if every court lady is shaped like a sofa pillow and about as firmтАФInever
made fun of themтАФ" She gave Mirabel a hard look. Mirabel, a few years before, had been caught with
pillows stuffed under her gown, mimicking the Most Noble Gracious Lady Vermania, wife of the then
Chancellor, in her attempt to line-dance at the Harvest Ball. That story, when it got back to the Most
Noble Gracious Lady and her husband, had done nothing for the reputation of the Ladies Aid & Armor
Society as a serious organization.

"I was only nineteen at the time," Mirabel said. "And I've already done all the apologizing I'm going to
do." She unrolled another parchment. "Besides, that's not the point. The point isтАФour fitness program is
losing money. We're not going to have enough for the annual Iron Jill retreat sacrifice unless we get some
customers. And we're stuck with all those flower-painted step-stools and those beastly mirrors which
have to be polishedтАж"

"Recruits' work," Blanche said.

"Yes, but not exactly military training. As for the ladies themselvesтАФthey looked pretty good at the
dance two days ago," Mirabel had been on what the Guard called "drunk duty" that night, and had
attributed certain ladies' newly slender limbs to her sisters' efforts in the Ladies Aid and Armor Society
Shape-up Classes.

"Who looked good?" asked Krystal. No one would trust Krystal for drunk duty at a royal ball; she was
entirely too likely to disappear down dark corridors with one of the drunks she was supposed to sober