"Jay Lake - Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

books of lore and treatises on natural science, though nothing that ever told me
anything of Copper Downs or the Factor or what was to become of my life. A
narrow-bodied woman of some completely different race, with silver-furred skin and
slanted golden eyes, came once a week and taught me dance. After a while, she
showed me other movements that she hinted could be used against people who
might hurt me. She often made me dance on the backs of chairs and the edges of
tables turned sideways, and made sure I knew how to throw all my strength into a
kick or a leap.

Or a blow.

All the time they called me тАЬGirl.тАЭ If I said any of my own words, they beat
me with sand-filled silk tubes that left no marks. If I was late, or thought to be
disrespectful, or simply forgetful, they beat me for that as well.

Though I learned from my dance teacher how to hit back hard, I held my
hands in check. Federo had taken me from my father with words, not fists. I would
take myself from these maggot women with words, not fists.

The only constant was the duck woman, whom I was instructed to call
тАЬMistress Tirelle.тАЭ Though Endurance had first taught me patience, Mistress Tirelle
made that lesson my way of life. The slap of her sandals on the wooden floors of
my rooms was like the bell of the white ox. Her coarse, labored breathing was
EnduranceтАЩs snorting to call me home.

Federo came now and again to see me. He was the reason they beat me with
silk, I realized, because he often checked my skin for blemishes. тАЬHow do you like it
here?тАЭ he would always ask, as if I had a choice.
 тАЬThe rain is cold, and the sun is too small in the sky,тАЭ I would always answer.
It was as close as I could come to saying I wished to go home without earning a
beating from Mistress Tirelle who listened from the doorways.

Then we would talk of small things, and what I had learned. Federo would
sample my cooking, or feel the texture of my weaving, or watch me dance, then
leave again for a month or a season, and once, almost an entire year.

There were other girls. I knew there had to be. The FactorтАЩs blue-walled
house had many pomegranate trees above the roofs, which meant many inner courts.
The women who taught me, and beat me, came and went to other errands that
implied they had responsibilities, schedules, things required of them. Their careless
bits of gossip told me more of these other girls who must be my rivals, how one was
a mistress of spice and flame in the kitchen, while another had calligraphy to match
the angels of heaven.

If they had good to say of me, I never heard it.

In my first year, I tried to make another belled silk, to count the days of my
life and ring me into womanhood, but Mistress Tirelle caught me at it and beat me
senseless with a wool spindle from the sewing room. The second time I tried, using
pomegranate seeds for bells, she found the silk hidden in the rafters of the dancing