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

without resorting to violence!
In return for all these favors, the first major carving project Ilya ever embarked on
was a new chess set for the two of them.
You can follow my progress as a carver in the set itself, he thought with drowsy
amusement. From the first pawn to the last tsar. That first pawn is almost as
clumsy as the ones the dogs chewed on, but they won't let me replace it. On the
other hand, the White Tsar is not bad, even compared to what I'm carving now. . .
.
But even as he thought about his chess set, his carving, he began to relax, and as
he relaxed, he started to fall asleep. He tried to keep a grasp on his thoughts, but
they began to slip away from him in a confused jumble of clumsily carved pawns
that gave way to a carved fox that laughed at him with sparkling eyes and turned into
Ludmilla.
***
In the morning, he woke with the first crowing of the roosters, feeling (as always
after a night of dalliance) quite self-satisfied and pleased with the world. The first
rays of the morning sun sent fingers of light through the cracks in his shutters, and
the rooster crowed again. Dust-motes danced in the golden light, and there had been
a time when he was a child that he could have gazed dreamily at that dance for
hours.
He made a mental note of the cracks; as always, the weathering of the wood
opened places for winter wind to come through, and no servant would bother to
repair the shutters in his room. Cracks in the shutters were tolerable in the summer
when all that might come in was a bit of rain, but when winter descended in earnest,
there would be snow sifting in through those cracks, and that would not make for
pleasant waking of a morning. Get some moss and a little tar; stuff the cracks, then
tar them over. That should hold until spring; then it won't matter anymore.
Anything done to his room, other than sabotage, he did for himself, more often
than not. While the outside-servants seemed to think well enough of him to accept
his bribes and remain bought, the house-servants knew they could get by with
neglecting him. They never quite dared descend to out-right insolence, but they were
quite well aware that they could get away with simply not performing their assigned
tasks where he was concerned. By now he was so used to this state of affairs that it
was easier just to take care of things himself.
First thing to do after I eat. I think I might be able to safely skip sword-practice
this morning. Considering what Sasha had said last night about the damage done to
the tsar's fighters by his sons, sparring partners might be thin on the ground this
morning.
He stretched and yawned hugely, clambered out of bed, and dressed himself in
shirt, breeches, boots, and sash, carefully tidying his room before leaving it. There
was very little chance that he would avoid his father this morning, but given the way
that his brothers had been swilling down honey-wine last night, he might be able to
elude most of them before they appeared at breakfast with aching heads.
But as he approached the great hall, he heard his father roaring at someone,
clearly in a temper. Although the words did not carry to where he stood, hesitating,
the tone certainly did.
Tsar Ivan is very unhappy this morning, and it doesn't sound to me as if his
unhappiness is due to a bad head from drinking last night. The last thing in the
world he wanted to do was to encounter Ivan in a temper, so he made a hasty detour
to the nearest exit. I'd better find out why he's roaring before I take my chances