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

spry little woman was not quite as slender as one of his maidens, but she was hardly
much heavier. Beneath her matronly blouse and skirt, she was surprisingly limber for
an old babushka.
"Why would I flirt with a silly girl when the most beautiful woman here is you?"
he cried, loud enough for everyone in the dairy to hear. More giggles followed that
pronouncement, and Mother Galina extricated herself from his arms with a blush and
a slap, which missed his cheek, as it was supposed to.
"What mischief have you gotten yourself into that you come barging into my dairy
like a clumsy ox?" she demanded, her bright black eyes twinkling under her bushy
eyebrows. "What is it that I must rescue you from this time? Or is it one of my
maidens that must be rescued from you?"
Her brows and the little that could be seen of her hair under the scarf that all
respectable women wore was black, as black as it had been the day she arrived at
the palace. No one knew where she came from; she had simply appeared at the
kitchen door, claiming to be an expert dairy-woman. That day had been particularly
disastrous in the dairy: The butter wouldn't form in the churns, the cream had
soured, and some of the cheeses had been discovered to be rancid rather than
ripening. The chief cook, who never had liked dairy-work, had told her that if she
could redeem the situation, she could have the dairy and the position of first
undercook.
He really hadn't expected her to be able to do anything, but he had been at his
wits' end. He had never regretted his hasty promise. By nightfall, sweet pats of butter
were stored in wooden butter-buckets in the spring, the cheeses had been saved, and
the soured cream had provided an excellent sauce for dinner.
Now, Galina's arrival and, more particularly, her success had not gone
unremarked, far from it. There had been some muttering about Galina being a
spiritтАФperhaps the domovoi's wifeтАФbut Ivan had put a stop to such mutterings
quickly. "There is no house-spirit, so how can there be a wife?" he had shouted out
one night at dinner. "The next person who blathers about the domovoi will get a pot
thrown at his head, and it won't be by a spirit!" He then proved that he wasn't
bluffing by knocking one poor serf senseless for hours, and topped himself by
growling that he'd do worse than that the next time.
So ended the talk, especially as Galina produced nothing more supernatural than
good butter. Eventually, most folk forgot she hadn't been born on Ivan's land,
particularly since a great deal of Ivan's land was "newly" acquired. Mother Galina
had made herself the undisputed ruler of the dairy, as much a part of the household
as those who had served Ivan's family for generations.
Nor was that all she had done. Ilya had been about three then, and as wild as a
little gypsy. His wet-nurse had long since gone on to other things, Ivan's current wife
cared nothing for him, and he wasn't yet old enough to begin the proper training of a
warrior. He could no longer recall what had brought him to the dairy shortly after
Galina was placed in charge, but thereafter, she became his unofficial nurse and
substitute mother.
"I brought you these," he said, holding out the bouquet of roses, "just to prove
the loyalty of my heart to you." Fortunately, he had not stood in the doorway of the
kitchen long enough for the heat to wilt the delicate petals. As Mother Galina closed
her hand about the stems, a wonderful perfume arose from the blossoms, filling the
dairy and causing more than one of the dairymaids to sigh over her churn. Galina
buried her rosy face in the flowers, her own expression that of deepest pleasure.
"You're a good boy, Ilya," she said at length and appropriated a milk-jug from