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

what they had been engaged in.
A game of chess. And if Father Mikail had ever considered that it might be a trifle
irreverent to play a game of chess in the house of God, he had obviously put that
thought aside. It was, after all, the only place where he and Ruslan could be
guaranteed not to be harassed with scorn for such an effeminate pursuit.
The two of them had set up a board between them, and the state of the set
showed how little anyone else cared about this particular pursuit; they didn't have all
of the pieces and had substituted stones for the missing pawns and a pinecone for a
missing rook. The rest of the set was as battered as might have been expected; two
of the knights were headless, and the remaining pawns were hardly more than
man-shaped lumps riddled with toothmarks and clearly rescued from dogs and
teething babies. He also remembered what he told them when they looked up in
startlement.
"Mother Galina says you are to teach me."
Teach him what? they had asked him.
 "Everything," he had told them soberly, then stuck his finger in his mouth. The
two men had immediately forgotten their game and concentrated on him.
From that time on he'd had two refuges instead of one: the dairy and the chapel.
For some reason, even to this day, Ilya's brothers were unlikely to even venture
into the chapel, much less bother him there, and he was quick to take advantage of
that. Perhaps it was a lingering vestige of the piety their mothers attempted to instill in
them, a respect for the place if not for the priest. Perhaps it was just the haunting
eyes of the icon above the altar, eyes that remained remarkably penetrating despite
the faded condition of the icon itself. Whatever the reason, as often as it was
possible to escape from the incessant practices designed to make him a fighting
machine, or from the torments devised by his brothers, he would head for the
chapel. At any time of the day, he would find one or both of the old men there,
ready to continue with his lessons. Ruslan taught him all of the lore of spirits and
magicтАФnever mind that the old shaman couldn't actually work any magic himself,
which certainly contributed to the reasons he was held in contemptтАФ and dozens of
songs and heroic tales. He'd also given Ilya his first knife, and showed him the bare
rudiments of carving.
And the only reason Father allows him to stay is because of a deathbed promise
to Grandfather that he would never turn Ruslan out. Poor old man; it must be
very hard to remain where you are so despised because you have nowhere else to
Father Mikail was a newer arrival, brought in the household of Ivan's first wife.
Ivan permitted him to stay only so long as he didn't interfere in anything
importantтАФwhich essentially meant that he was permitted to teach Christian doctrine
to the family, serfs, and servants only so long as those lessons didn't interfere in their
duties. And he was permitted to hold holy services whenever he likedтАФso long as
family, serfs, and servants didn't escape tasks in order to attend services. Perhaps
when he had first arrived, he had been appalled by the presence of a pagan shaman
in Ivan's household, but it couldn't have been long before Mikail realized that he and
Ruslan were better off as allies than antagonists. And eventually these two oddest of
bedfellows had become friends.
Mikail taught Ilya how to read and write, as much of chess as he could absorb
without squirming with boredom, and despaired of making a good Christian soul out
of himтАФnot because of Ruslan's interference, but because of Ilya's own nature.
He never will make a good Christian out of me; I'm too fond of my pleasures.
But he is a good teacher; he'd have to be, to teach a brat like me how to read