"Mercedes Lackey - Bardic Voices 1 - Lark And Wren" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

an inch away. Her mother's nasal whine echoed up the stairs from the tavern sleeping rooms below.
"Rune? Rune!"
Rune sighed, and her hand dropped to her side. "Yes, Mother?" she called over her shoulder. She'd
hoped to get a little practice in before the evening customers began to file in.
"Have you swept the tavern and scrubbed the tables?" When Stara said "the tavern," she meant the
common room. The kitchen was not in Rune's purview. The cook, Annie, who was also the stableman's
wife, reigned supreme there, and permitted no one within her little kingdom but herself and her aged
helper, known only as Granny.
"No, Mother," Rune called down, resignedly. "I thought Maeve-"
"Maeve's doing the rooms. Get your behind down there. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner
you can get on with that foolish scraping of yours." Then, as an afterthought, as Rune reached the top step,
"And don't call me 'Mother.' "
"Yes M-Stara." Stifling another sigh, Rune plodded down the steep, dark attic stairs, hardly more than
a ladder down the back wall. As she passed the open doors, she heard Maeve's tuneless humming and the
slow scrape of a broom coming from the one on her right. From the bottom, she crossed the hall to the real
stairs taking them two at a time down into the common room.
The shutters on the windows on two sides of the room had been flung wide to the brisk spring air; a
light breeze slowly cleared out the last of the beer fumes. A half-worn broom leaned against the bar at the
back of the room, where Maeve had undoubtedly left it when Stara ordered her upstairs. Rune took it; her
first glance around had told her that nothing more had been accomplished except to open the shutters. The
benches were still stacked atop the tables, and the latter pushed against the walls; the fireplace was still full
of last night's ashes. Nothing had been cleaned or put into order, and the only sign that the tavern was
opening for business was the open shutters. Probably because that was all anyone had thought to tell Maeve
to do.
Rune went to the farthest corner of the room and started sweeping, digging the worn bristles of the
broom firmly against the floorboards. The late Rose, wife of Innkeeper Jeoff, had called Maeve "an
innocent." Annie said she was "a little simple."
What Stara called her was "a great lump."
Poor Maeve was all of those, Rune reflected. She lived in a world all her own, that was certain. She
could-and did, if left to her own devices-stand in a window for hours, humming softly with no discernible
tune, staring at nothing. But if you gave her clear orders, she would follow them to the exact letter. Told to
sweep out a room, she would do so. That room, and no more, leaving a huge pile of dirt on the threshold.
Told to wash the dishes, she would wash the dishes all right, but not the pots, nor the silverware, and she
wouldn't rinse them afterwards. Of course, if anyone interrupted her in the middle of her task, she would
drop what she was doing, follow the new instructions, and never return to the original job.
Still, without her help, Rune would have a lot more to do. She'd never have time to practice her
fiddling.
Rune attacked the dirt of the floor with short, angry strokes, wishing she could sweep the troubles of
her life out as easily. Not that life here was bad, precisely-
"Rune?" Stara called down the stairs. "Are you sweeping? I can't hear you."
"Yes M-Stara," Rune replied. The worn bristles were too soft to scrape the floor the way Maeve's
broom was doing, but it was pointless to say anything about it.
So Stara didn't want to be called "Mother" anymore. Rune bit her lip in vexation. Did she really think
that if Rune stopped referring to her as "Mother" people would forget their relationship?
Not here, Rune told herself sourly. Not when my existence is such a pointed example of why good
girls don't do That without wedding banns being posted.
Even though Stara was from a village far from here-even though she wore the braids of a married
woman and claimed that Rune's father had been a journeyman muleteer killed by bandits-most of the
village guessed the real truth. That Stara was no lawfully wedded widow; that Rune was a bastard.
Stara had been a serving wench in the home of a master silversmith, and had let the blandishments of