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

if the gossip did make him out as a sorcerer. He'd have to be a singularly
incompetent sorcerer, anyway, to let his brothers beat him to a froth on a regular
basis.
"If Pietor casts black looks on you, you might suggest to one of the others that he
was hoping to involve you in a conspiracy," she suggested. "YuriтАФhe could suspect
a plot just by seeing two serfs visiting the privy at the same time. You're clever
enough to hint without actually saying anything. The rumor will get back to Ivan
before the end of the meal, and it won't do Pietor any good; he'll believe a
conspiracy before he'd ever believe in sorcery."
"I'll think on it," he temporized, and kissed her brow as she flushed with pleasure.
"That might do me more harm than good, though. You know that Father thinks I'm
already engaged in plots against him; I don't need to add to that. It's easy enough to
see where Yuri gets his suspicious nature."
She nodded solemnly. "Do what you think is best; you hardly need me to give
you advice anymore."
"Now that is surely the biggest lie you ever told me, Babushka," he chided with a
smile. "I shall always need you to give me advice!"
"Ah, when the eagle is flying; he doesn't need his mother to count his
wing-beats," she replied, once again cheerful. "Now off with you! I have butter to
press before dinner."
She turned back to her work and was soon engrossed; he paused at the doorway
long enough to whisper to the attractive blonde. "Moonrise. The north meadow?"
She nodded, ever so slightly, and he left the dairy with a bounce in his walk. The
north meadow, bordered by the spring that supplied the palace and dairy with water,
was a favorite meeting-place of his. There was a weeping willow on the banks of the
stream whose branches formed a curtain even in the fall; the ground beneath it was
soft with moss. Perhaps in any other household but Ivan's the serfs would fear to
walk there after dark, afraid of the water-dwelling rusalka or the meadow-haunting
polevoi, but not here. Ivan would have thrown pots at anyone telling tales of spectral
herdsmen all in white, or ethereal maidens waiting to pull the unsuspecting under to
drown. The shelter of the willow's bough was a good place to sit and play the
balalaika, and if a milkmaid happened to hear the music and was curious about who
was playing there, well, that was no one's business but hers.
And even if her courage failed her and she didn't appear, it was still a good place
to sit and play the balalaika.
He marched toward the palace with trepidation, but the sounds of combat no
longer troubled the air, and he breathed a sigh of relief. After a good workout or a
good quarrel, the rest of his brothers were usually too tired to want anything but their
suppers. He always took his practices in the morning; the others liked to lie abed as
long as possible. If he showed up early, he had the courtyard and whichever warrior
who wanted to practice with him all to himself. That was one reason why his
brothers were no longer able to beat him singly; concentrated practice was much
better than an uncoordinated brawl.
However, those solitary practices were not doing much to alleviate his father's
suspicions either.
Father thinks I'm trying to train myself in treachery, in back-stabbing and
ambush. Huh. If I killed him, I'd only have a hundred times the trouble I do now!
All my brothers would be trying to murder me in turn, rather than just beat me up
now and again.
He crossed the yard and entered the wooden palace, easily the largest building for