"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 08 - A Time Of Justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

тАШIтАЩm the tieryn's captain, and I'm here to keep the child from getting hurt. Now fetch him out or we'll
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knock this gate down to come get him.'

'Here, lass,' Jill said and much more gently, 'The tieryn sent a woman along to carry the baby home.
Would he have done that if he were going to have it killed or suchlike?'

The woman raised the lantern and stared into Jill's face; then she nodded agreement.

'He's a sweet baby. I'll miss him.'

Jill supposed that the sweetness of babies was an acquired taste. On the long ride home she found the
squirming, wailing bundle a nuisance and little else, even though one of the men led her horse to give her
both hands free for the job. She tried singing to him, bouncing him, even kissing him, but the baby, torn
out of his warm cradle into a cold night and the arms of a stranger, wept the whole way home until the
poor little thing was hoarse and whimpering. By the time she could finally hand him over to his jubilant
mother, she was praying to the Goddess that she'd never conceive.

Before she went to bed, Jill joined the tieryn and Rhodry at the table of honour for a well-earned flagon
of mulled ale.

'No trouble on the road, I take it?' Dwaen said.

'None, Your Grace. It gladdens my heart that you'll forgive poor Vyna.тАЩ

'She seems as much a victim as any of us. While you were gone, she described this fellow that she's
been meeting. The cook always sent her on errands into town, you see, because she was the oldest of
the three kitchen lasses, so she could get a word with him when she needed to.'

'We've got to get our hands on him,' Rhodry put in. 'But if his grace sends the warband into town, the
bastard will probably flee.'

'And the whole town will know what's been happening, too,' Dwaen said with a pronounced gloom. 'I
hate to think of my subjects gossiping about me night and day.'

тАШIтАЩm sure they do that already, Your Grace.' Jill helped herself to some of Rhodry's ale white she
thought. 'Here, it's still cold, this early in the spring. I can wear some of Vyna's clothes and muffle myself
up in her cloak. Then when he follows me, Rhodry can pounce on him.'

'Excellent, but I'll send Lallyc in, too. We can't have you getting hurt, lass.'

At noon on the morrow Jill went to Vyna's tiny room, which she shared with the other two kitchen
maids, in the servants' quarters over one of the stables. Next to Vyna's straw mattress was the bottom of
an ale barrel, sawed down and filled with straw for a rough cradle for the baby. While Jill changed into
Vyna's clothes, the kitchen lass sat the baby on her lap and cooed to him.