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

around him.
It wasn't the first time he'd retraced his steps of a morning and took himself out
into the yard. At least the weather was good; a bit cool, but sunny and clear. He
wouldn't have to plow his way through a snowstorm to get to a place of refuge or to
get a bite to eat.
He stopped long enough in the kitchen to filch a basket and fill it with hot bread.
The head cook glared at him but didn't dare actually rebuke himтАФhe was, after all, a
son of the tsar, if the most despised son of the tsar. If he wanted to filch bread, then
that was his right.
There was one place to go where he would get sure news of what had his father in
a froth, and that was the dairy. If he went to the dairy for shelter as well as news, he
really ought to arrive bearing gifts. And if he really wanted to hear gossip, the gift
had better be food. When the girls were distracted, they tended to chatter, and
chatter was precisely what he wanted.
Mother Galina and her workers seldom ever got hot, fresh bread since their work
kept them away from the kitchen and the servants' table until after everyone else was
finished eating. The maidens greeted him and his basket with cries of pleasure, and
even Galina smiled and condescended to allow a brief rest while they all ate chunks
of hot bread dripping with sweet, melting butter and drank pannikins of milk still
warm from the cows.
Ilya kept quiet; if there was anything of note about the tsar's anger, he'd hear
about it sooner if he didn't say anything directly. Once they "forgot" he was there,
they'd start to gossip freely, giving him no more regard than one of the cowherds.
There's some advantage to being the despised one, he thought to himself, sitting
on a stool in the corner beside
Mother Galina and licking butter from his fingers. People forget to guard their
tongues around you.
His charming Ludmilla, his companion of the previous night, was nowhere to be
seen, but he hadn't really expected her to be here this morning. The dairymaids took
turns at milking; those who milked the cattle in the morning worked in the dairy in the
afternoon, and vice versa. Just at the moment, he really didn't want to see her; if it so
happened that he was the one who had incurred Ivan's wrath, he didn't want the
complication of Ludmilla to deal with. She'd either try to dissociate herself
completely from himтАФthe likeliest outcomeтАФor feel she had to defend him. In either
case, he had long ago determined that he personally would come out a loser. Either
Ludmilla would quickly find another lover among his brothers, or she'd incur even
more wrath on his head by being outspoken in his defense.
As the bread disappeared, the chatter began. At first it was entirely
inconsequential nonsense, but finally one of the youngest girls said, into a
conversational lull, "Did you hear the tsar this morning? He was bellowing like a bull
with a cow in view!"
 "I heard him," one of the older women said, "but I didn't get a chance to find out
why he was so angry. Does anyone know? Is it going to give us any trouble?"
Just what I'd like to know!
"Not us," another older woman said smugly. "But there may be more than pots
flung before the day is over. My husband's brother's second son heard that it's the
orchard-workers who are in trouble."
"Tell, tell!" exclaimed two or three of the girls at once, for there was ongoing
rivalry among the "outside" serfs and servants for relative importance to the
household. At this time of year the orchard-workers were in ascendancy, and serfs