"Robin McKinley - Spindle's End" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

tended to let it be known, especially at the smaller villages, at the
local pub after the official announcement was made, that the king
and queen had wanted to invite everyone, really everyone. And that
if the person with the royal lot showed up with a friend or two,
chances were they'd all get in.
That took care of the common citizens, and, barring the number
and manner of them, that was the easy part. Much harder were the
high tables: who would sit near the king or the queen, who would
have to make do at a slightly less high table headed by a mere prince
or duke or baron, which countries were to be invited to send emissaries,
and whether the fuss made over the emissaries should have
more to do with the size and status of the country, or the number of
unmarried sons in the royal family.
But hardest of all was what to do about the fairies.
Court magicians were members of the court, and there would be
special high tables just for them, where they could compare notes on
astrological marvels, cast aspersions on the work of other magicians
not present to defend themselves, and be slightly world-weary about
the necessity of coming to so superstitious and ridiculous an event as
a royal name-day.
But fairies were a different kettle of imaginary watery beings.
Some fairies were nearly as powerful as the magicians, and what they
thought and did was much more varied and unpredictable. Magicians
had to attend the Academy for a number of years, and anyone calling
himself a magician-since it was usually a he-had a degree in
hippogriff leather to show for it, although no one but another
magician would be able to read the invisible writing on it. Magicians
could make earthquakes happen if they wanted to, or a castle go up
(or down) in a night, and a properly drawn-up magician's spell could
last a lifetime. Mostly they were hired by powerful people to spy on
their powerful neighbours, and to demonstrate their existence, so that
the powerful neighbours didn't try anything with their own magicians.
(Fetes where the magicians of rival families would be present
were always well attended, because the spectacles were sure to be
exceptionally fine.) Magicians without a taste for this sort of flash
stayed at the Academy, or at other academies, pursuing the ultimate
secrets of the universe (and philosophies concerning the balance of
magic), which were, presumably, dangerous, which was why Academicians
tended to have long sombre faces, and to move as if they
were waiting for something to leap out at them. But the point was that
magicians had rules. Fairies were the wild cards in a country where
the magic itself was wild.
Even the queen was a little hesitant about issuing a blanket invitation
to fairies. Several hundred fairies together-let alone several
thousand-in one place were certain to kick up a tremendous dust of
magic, and fate only knew what might be the outcome.
"But most fairies live in towns and villages, do they not?" said the
queen. "So they are, in a way, included in the invitation our heralds
are carrying." The fact was that no one really knew how many
fairies-even how many practising fairies-there were in the country;