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

ovens themselves, a red glow that brought to mind the fires of the Infernal Pit. It
bathed the glistening faces and limbs of the laboring servants, bent over their tasks at
the three huge wooden tables like so many dwarfish spirits in bondage, or tormented
souls paying the price of their sins. For a moment, the kitchen appeared as haunted
and unchancy as the bathhouse, which had its own resident spirit, the bannik, a
creature known to kill those who offended it.
Quickly Ilya crossed himself to avert any inadvertent curses brought on by that
thought, and backed hastily out of the doorway. Mother Galina wouldn't be in there;
the place was hot enough to make an ox faint. So if she wasn't in the kitchen, she
was probably in the dairy, overseeing the results of the afternoon milking.
The dairy adjoined the kitchen and was as pleasant as the kitchen was hellish. It
was the best-built construction on the property, for one of Ilya's ancestors had a
great fondness for butter and cheese and had given his dairy-herd, both cows and
goats, pride of place. It was the only building that was constructed entirely of stone,
with a stone floor, and the water from the spring that served the entire palace was
tamed to a trough running right through the center of it. In winter, the great brick
stove at the end made it just warm enough to be bearable, but in the summer the cool
was delightful. Ilya had spent many long summer days here as a child, watching the
cheesemakers with fascination, helping to churn the butter, getting teased by the
dairymaids. Later the teasing had turned to flirting, and the flirting to skirt-chasing,
which had resulted in Mother Galina banishing him from the dairy unless he had
reason to be there.
So I moved my hunting-grounds to the pastures, and no one the wiser. A big
belly or two had probably resulted from his games in the grass, but he never found
out about it officially. Ivan had an unwritten but ironclad rule about his sons' (or his
own) bastards: Any serf-girl finding herself in the family way by any of the men was
to present herself quietly to the chief steward. Provided that she didn't make a fuss,
she'd find herself rewarded with a dowry, a husband of her station or above,and a
new position on the palace staff. Ilya suspected that his father chose his own girls
from among the ones so promoted, for certainly there were one or two of Ilya's own
former milkmaids whom he had seen sporting silver-and-amber trinkets he had never
given them and that none of the other sons could have afforded either. The best he
or his brothers could manage for a girl was a string of glass beads or a length of
cloth filched from the stores.
 As he pushed the wooden door of the dairy ajar, the first person who caught his
eye was not Mother Galina, but a newcomer, an unfamiliar, fresh-faced milkmaid, all
pink cheeks and blonde braids. She stood at one of the smooth slate tables,
kneading the last of the whey out of a cloth full of curds. The shapeless, coarse linen
smock of the serfs was pulled in tightly around a tiny waist by a spotless apron
embroidered with flowers and deer in tiny, careful stitches of black wool. Her smock
was short enough that she displayed not only a pair of pretty little feet, but slender
ankles and a hint of graceful calves. The string tying her smock at the neck had come
undone, allowing one shoulder as smooth as cream and the very beginning of the
swell of a shapely breast to show. The maid looked up and caught him staring; she
gave him an impish smile and a slow, languorous wink of one limpid blue eye. He
straightened, feeling suddenly much more cheerful.
"Stop flirting with my girls, you shameless hulk!" He jumped and gave the
expected yelp as the end of a cheesecloth hit his rear with a sharp snap. The girl
giggled and turned her attention back to her work without the slightest sign of shame;
he whirled around to catch Mother Galina in a bear-hug that left her breathless. The