"Esther M. Friesner - Puss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

Puss
Esther M. Friesner
THE BOOTS WERE ONLY THE BEGINNING. I STILL FEEL his hands on
me, hard fingers driving deep into my ribs, jamming the heavy, clumsy sheaths of
scarlet leather onto my hind legs while I squalled and spat until he cuffed me silent.
"Now walk!" he bawled, drunk with the bit of wine his own coin had bought.
"Stand tall, you worthless animal! I'll make my fortune with you yet. There's fools
enough in this wretched world who'll pay good money to see a trained cat."
Where had he ever gotten them, the boots? I never doubted that the world was as
he painted it: cruel, cold as a dry tit, full of soulless shells like him who'd do anything
to hear two coins chink-chink together in their fat, hairless palms. Surely that was
how he had found the man to make them.
Oh, how they hurt me! No cat was ever born who'd willingly ask for such a
crippling. He had me under the forelegs and swung my body forwardтАФfirst one
side, then the otherтАФin imitation of human strides.
"Walk, damn you! The old fool said as you were specialтАФpox take him. Must be
something more to it than a gaffer's babblings, or it's all up for me. Walk!" His sour
breath was full of curses for me and his father; his brothers, too, snug in their more
comfortable patrimonies of mill and farm. They knew nothing and cared less that the
youngest of the three now spent his night in a stable, kneeling in piles of horse-fouled
straw, torturing a cat.
I could not walkтАФnot like thatтАФand he was too great a fool to bide and seek my
true talents. So it seemed I should be free, soon or late. All it wanted was the taste of
blood.
I let myself hang limp in his hands, deadweight. He groaned. I could see the
self-pity bubbling up in his eyes behind the fat, ready tears of a drunkard.
"Worthless." He held me off the floor so the boots with their heavy soles and heels
pulled my hind legs down. The pain raced clear up my spine, a white fire in my
brain.
"Worthless!" This time it was a shout, and a shaking to go with it. My eyes
clouded with the red haze. Rage filled my mouth, called up the ghosts of my true
teethтАФ not these paltry stubbins good for reaping only mice and rats. Oh, the
hunger!
"Damn the old man." Now he was sniveling. I got another shake for his father's
imagined sin. "All those years a-dying, and Bill and Tom crowding 'round the bed,
simpering like daub-brained girls." And another shake yet for my poor, spinning
head. "Cunning bastards. One to keep deathwatch, one to stiff-arm me off, keep me
far from the old turtle so's it'd look as if I didn't care was no one there to shut his
eyes for him after. Well, it worked, blast them all to hell for it! Mill and farm gone,
and nothing for me but this!"
And he swung me back and flung me hard against the stable wall.
The boots were my death. I could not twist in midair and take the fall as I should,
not with them weighing me down. I felt my ribs shatter as I hit the rough-hewn
boards, my spine come unstrung with a single snap against a jutting beam. My limbs
crumpled under me when I slipped down into the straw, all skewed. Warm, salty
blood welled over my tongue. I let my mouth hang open and the thin, red flow
trickled out, dampening the golden dust that overlay the straw. Soon, through the
death of this small, much-punished husk, the Change would come and work its
power. Soon I would be free.
But the pain was too fierce. The fury in my veins wailed impatiently for my lost