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

a peddler with a glib tongue and ready money lure her into his bed. The immediate result had been a silver
locket and scarlet ribbons from his pack. The long-term result was a growing belly, and the loss of her
place.
Stara lived on the charity of the Church for a time, but no longer than she had to. After Rune had been
born, Stara had packed up her belongings and her meager savings, and set out on foot as far as her money
would take her, hoping to find some place where her charm, her ability to wheedle, and her soft blond
prettiness would win her sympathy, protection, and a new and better place.
Rune suspected that she had soon discovered-much to her shock-that while her looks, as always, won
her the sympathy of the males of the households she sought employment with, she got no favor from the
females. Certainly on the rare occasions when she talked to her daughter about those long-ago days, she
had railed against the "jealous old bitches" who had turned her out again after they discovered what their
spouses had hired.
And so would I have, Rune thought wryly, as the pile of dirt in front of her broom grew to the size of
her closed fist. The girl Stara had been was all too likely to have a big belly again as soon as she'd wormed
her way into the household. And this time, the result would have been sure to favor the looks of the master
of the house. She had no credentials, no references-instead of applying properly to the women of the
household, she went straight to the men. Stupid, Mother. But then, you never have paid any attention to
women when there were men around.
But finally Stara had wound up here, at the "Hungry Bear." The innkeeper's wife, Rose, was of a
credulous, generous and forgiving nature; Innkeeper Jeoff a pious Churchman, and charitable. That alone
might not have earned her the place as the serving-maid in the tavern. But luck had been with her this time;
their pot-boy had signed with the army and gone off to the city and there was no one in the village willing
or able to take his place. Stara's arrival, even encumbered as she was, must have seemed like a gift from
God, and they had needed her desperately enough to take her story at face value.
Although the villagers guessed most of the tale easily enough, they too were obliged to accept the
false story, (outwardly, at least) since Jeoff and Rose did. But Rune was never allowed to forget the truth.
Stara threw it in Rune's face every time she was angry about anything-and the village children had lost no
opportunity to imply she was a bastard for as long as she could remember.
They only said openly what their parents thought. Stara didn't seem to care, wearing low-cut blouses
and kilted-up skirts when she went into the village on errands, flirting with the men and ignoring the sneers
of the women. Back in the tavern, under Rose's eye, however, she had pulled the drawstrings of her blouses
tight and let her skirts down, acting demure and briskly businesslike in all her dealings with males. Rune
had more than once heard Rose defending her foundling to her friends among the villagers, telling Jeoff
afterwards that they were just envious because of Stara's youth and attractiveness.
And that much was certainly true. The village women were jealous. Stara was enough to excite any
woman's jealousy, other than a tolerant, easy-going lady like Rose, with her long, blond hair, her plump
prettiness, her generous breasts and her willingness to display her charms to any eye that cared to look. Of
course, none of this did any good at all for her reputation in the village, but Stara didn't seem to concern
herself over trifles like what the villagers thought.
It was left to Rune to bear the brunt of her mother's reputation, to try to ignore the taunts and the
veiled glances. Stara didn't care about that, either. So long as nothing touched or inconvenienced her
directly, Stara was relatively content.
Only relatively, since Stara was not happy with her life as it was, and frequently voiced her
complaints in long, after-hours monologues to her daughter, with little regard for whether or not Rune was
going to suffer from loss of sleep the next day.
Last night had been one of those nights, and Rune yawned hugely as she swept.
Rune wasn't precisely certain what her mother wanted-besides a life of complete leisure. Just what
Stara had done to deserve such a life eluded Rune-but Stara seemed to feel quite strongly that she deserved
it. And had gone on at aggrieved and shrill length about it last night. . . .
Rune yawned again, and swept the last of the night's trod-in dirt out into the road. It would, of course,