"Robin McKinley - Rose Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

she had anything very much to offer in exchange for the old manтАЩs meagre life but in recognition that her
determination was absolute. And there was not, after all, any material gain to be had from letting the old
man die in gaol. The price for this benevolence was a promise that the old merchant would do business in
the city no more. It was a guarantee Beauty was happy to make for him.
They escaped only just before LionheartтАЩs roaring ceased to compel delivery of their groceries.
None of the sisters had ever before ventured out of the city more than a few daysтАЩ journey, and then
only for some amusement at some great country seat. The old merchant had occasionally chosen to
conduct his business in another city in person, but then he travelled by sea, always booking the most
luxurious private cabin for the journey. Now they were on the road for weary week after weary week,
with only such comforts as an ancient unsprung farm waggon and a pokey tent could offer. They had
barely been able to pay for their place in a tradersтАЩ convoy heading in the direction they wished to go;
they would be travelling often through near wilderness, and banditry was common. But the traders did
not welcome them, and they were made quickly aware that their leaderтАЩs agreeing to take them on was
not popular with the others and that they would receive no help ifтАЭ they found it difficult to keep up.
They did keep up. The merchant was ill and weak and wandered in his wits, but the three sisters did
everything, as they had done everything since the Duke and the Baron had written a few words on two
sheets of heavy, cream-laid paper and sealed them with their seals. Lionheart was lender to their two
slow shaggy horses in a way Beauty had never seen her be tender with her high-couraged thoroughbreds,
and Jeweltongue was gentle with their father in a way Beauty had never seen Jeweltongue be gentle with
any human being less capable than she.
There was one bit of trouble early on. when one of the traders attempted to pay rough court to
Jeweltongue; she had just bitten his hand when Lionheart hit him over the head with a horse-collar. The
commotion brought some of the others. There was a brief, tense, ugly silence, when it might have gone
either way, and then the traders decided they admired these soft city girls for defending themselves so
resolutely. They dragged then: colleagueтАЩs unconscious body back to his own fireside, and their captain
promised there would be no more such incidents. There were not.
Winter came early that year; the tradersтАЩ convoy had to take shelter in a village barely halfway to
their goal. It might yet have gone hard for the three sisters but for LionheartтАЩs ability to turn three wizened
turnips into a feast for sixteen, JeweltongueтАЩs ability to patch holes in shirts more hole than shirt out of a
few discreet excisions from the hems, and BeautyтАЩs ability to say three kind words, as if at random, just
before coldтАФand want-shortened tempers flared into fighting. By the time of the thaw, the traders were
no longer sorry for their leaderтАЩs bargain with the ruined merchant and his three beautiful daughters, and
the fellow still bearing a knot on the back of his head from a blow from a horse-collar had mended a
frost-cracked wheel for the sisters and refused any compensation, saying that companions of the road
took no payment from one another.
The three sisters and their father went the last few miles alone. The lawyersтАЩ letter had described
Rose Cottage as being at the end of the last track off the main way through the woods before
LongchanceтАЩs farmlands began. The traders knew the way to Longchance well, and while none of them
knew anything of Rose Cottage, they knew which track the last one wasтАФor what was left of it, for it
had not been used in many years. It was just wide enough to take two small horses abreast, and just
clear enough for an old farm cart laboriously to lumber down.
A surprising number of the traders came round individually to say good-bye to their travelling
companions, and several mumbled something about maybe looking in tтАЩsee how they was doing, on the
way home again. Then the traders went on the wider way. The three sisters and the old merchant went
the narrow one.
The house too was recognisable from the description in the lawyersтАЩ letter. Small; thatched, now
badly overdue for replacement; one storey, with a loft over half of it, the roof so peaked that the upstairs
room would be only partly usable; stone chimney on either of the narrow sides of the house, the one on
the loft side much the bigger; two small tumbledown sheds and some bits of broken fence; and a chestnut
tree growing a little distance from the front door. The remains of an overgrown garden spilled out behind