"Roberta Gellis - Fires of Winter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gellis Roberta)

one who could breed him a strong heir.
I saw, too, the indifference with which the babe, AudrisтАФ they told my mother
her name; I do not know whyтАФwas thrust at my mother. The child was still wet with
the water of baptism and carelessly wrapped in an old shawl though it was autumn
and the night was chill. My mother listened to all they said, for they spoke before us
as if we were beasts with no understandingтАФor, perhaps, they thought their language
would be strange to us. But a whore must learn the tongue in which the men who use
her speak, and my father had seen to it that I was tutored in proper French and used
it.
Initially my mother had taken Audris with an indifference equal to that with which
the babe was handed over, and I could feel tears sting my eyes. Here was another
such as I, of no account to anyone, unwanted, unloved. But as my mother listened
to the talk of those who had invaded our hut near the stable wall, a strange
expression crossed her face. I was the only one who saw, for she had lowered her
head in seeming submission to the high-born ones. In Berta's eyes there was a
malicious gleam and an immovable stubbornness in the set of her mouth. As soon as
those who had come were gone, she put Audris to her breastтАФand the babe sucked.
Then my mother laughed softly and bade me bring my good clean shirt to her. With
that, she patted Audris dry and wrapped her more carefully in a clean shift of her
own, holding her close to warm her.
When Audris had taken her fillтАФand it was a good meal she made for a creature
so tinyтАФmy mother patted her until she brought up wind, then made me rise from
my pallet, which was warm from my body, and laid Audris therein, covering her with
my blanket. She threw her own blanket over me to keep me from growing chilled and
bade me watch by the babe, with stern words about what I should do if she cried or
began to spit up what she had eaten. Then she made up the fire so that it blazed in
the hearth like a fire of winter. I saw Audris better in that light, and she looked so
strange in the sudden flare and sudden dark that I had to see her better. Finally, my
mother snatched up my half brother and went out with him.
I knew I would never see him again, but that did not trouble me. My mother had
so taken the other two babes born to her down to the serfs in the lower bailey. When
she took the first child, I had never been there, but my mother told me, when I cried
for the babe she had carried away, that there was always a woman who had lost a
babe among them or among the people of the village beyond the wall or on the
outlying farms. It was the first I had heard of any place other than the keep and the
inner bailey, and the tale had distracted me from the loss of my toyтАФfor it had been
an amusement to watch the comic expressions on the face of the little one and see
the wavering of his arms and legs and the attempts to move himself. I was so lonely
in those days, forbidden to play with the other children and constantly in fear of my
father. By the time Audris was brought to us, I was accustomed to losing my
siblings and I had enough, in my practice of arms and riding, to fill my days.
 Before she left, my mother had lit the lamp with a long sliver of wood first thrust
into the blaze of fire in the pit in the earthen floor. When I was younger and the little
leaping flame from the twist of linen set into the soft fat in the pottery bowl had
fascinated me, I had been forbidden to touch the lamp. I gave that only a glancing
thought now. My mother would not be back for some time, I knew, and I had to see
Audris more clearly. A stool lifted me high enough to reach the low shelf on which
the lamp was set, and I brought it nigh and examined my half sister in the flickering
light.
I could see at once that she was different from the babes my mother had borne.