"Mercedes Lackey - Firebird" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

could be doing without altogether!
There was one small stumbling-block to overcome in gaining the safe use of the
barn now and again. He wondered what the chief herdsman would want for a bribe
this year; last year it had cost Ilya an old cloak and a beautifully carved bone whistle
for "special favors."
Without those favors, though ... well, the amount of discomfort and hazard
involved in a winter seduction would probably guarantee his chastity until spring.
I can't blame the man for wanting his little reward. In his place I'd want a little
extra for all that extra work.
The man made certain that Ilya got warning and a way out of the barn if any of his
brothers showed up looking for him, He'd also built a cozy little hay-cave up in the
loft, a place where Ilya could leave a couple of old blankets, and he'd seen to it that
the cave wasn't disturbed until spring, no matter how much hay was thrown down
for the stock. Of course, he probably used it himself, for trysts with girls other than
his wife. I know I would have. All he had to bring was a brick or a stone, hot from
sitting in the stove and wrapped in an old piece of fur. With the addition of that
heated stone, such a cave made a fine trysting-place.
Ruslan approved of Ilya's trysts almost as much as Father Mikail disapproved,
though that approval was voiced only to Ilya himself. When Father Mikail flung
himself into one of his lectures about sin and the consequences for Ilya's soul,
Ruslan only pulled his beard and nodded wisely. The shaman would never have
disagreed with the priest on a topic so fundamental to Mikail's beliefs in front of Ilya.
The two took very good care never to contradict each other in public so as to
present a united front.
But in privateтАФwell, Ruslan took great proprietary glee in Ilya's conquests, as if
he felt Ilya's success was a reflection of his own virility. Ilya was both amused and
embarrassed by his interest.
Ilya folded his clothing neatly, then climbed into bed and pulled the covers over
his head with a sigh of relative contentment. He was clean, sated, and more or less
unbruised. For the moment, life was good.
I could wish for Father Mikail to agree with Ruslan about my girls, but other
than that, I haven't anything to complain about tonight. For a moment he felt the
sadness of isolation, of a loneliness he tried not to think about too often. The priest
and the shaman were his only two real friends besides Mother Galina, and they were
hardly the kind of friends a young man craved.
On the other hand, they're better than nothing.
Perhaps Mother Galina had known he needed men to guide him, for she had sent
him to both Mikail and Ruslan the winter she arrived.
The memories intruded on sleep, as vivid as a memory of a few days ago. He had
been with her in the dairy as the first snow of the season fell; when the last of the
dairymaids left, she had looked out at the fat flakes as if she was trying to make up
her mind about something. She stood in the doorway, and he stood beside her,
watching the ground whiten as the light faded into blue dusk. He didn't remember
being cold, for some reason, but he vividly recalled licking his finger clean of cream
filched behind Galina's back. Finally she spoke; that is where his memory failed. He
didn't remember now what she had told him; he only remembered crossing the
snow-frosted yard and entering the palace, remembered walking toward the chapel,
looking for two old men. He had found them both in the chapel itself, sitting on a
pair of stools with a small table between them, with the faded, painted eyes of the
icon of Jesus watching them from above the altar, and he did remember quite clearly