"Elizabeth Moon - No Pain, No Gain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

No Pain, No Gain
Elizabeth Moon
┬л^┬╗



Meryl the shepherdess woke from nightmares in which she waded through glue on
grotesquely swollen legs. She opened her eyes to the smoky rafters of her mother's little hut
and stretched luxuriously. Bad dreams make good days, Gran always said. Flinging back th
covers, she rolled out of bed and burst into screams. There they were, attached to her own
bodyтАФthe plump soft legs of her dream, and when she took a step, it felt as if she were wad
through glue. She didn't stop screaming until her mother slapped her smartly across the mou
Gran said it was the Evil Eye, and probably the fault of Jamis the cowherd's second wife, n
better than she should be, jealous because her girl had a mole on her nose, for which she ha
blamed everyone but herself. Everyone knew that the Evil Eye didn't cause moles on the no
those came from poking and prying.

Meryl's new flabby legs ached abominably for days, but eventually she was able to keep
with her flock without too much trouble. Gran had a quiet word with The Kind One, and the
cowherd's step-daughter broke out in disgusting pustules very like cowpox next market-day
Meryl figured it was all over, but she still wished for her own legs back.



Dorcas Doublejoints, justly famed dancer at The Scarlet Veil, could do things with her
abdominal musculature which fascinated the most discerning clients, and resulted in a stead
growth in her bank account. She had trained since childhood, when her Aunt Semele had
noticed the anatomical marks of potential greatness. So now, in the lovely space between h
ribs and her pubic bone, all was perfectly harmonious, muscle and a delicately calculated
amount of "smoothing," and unblemished skin with one artfully placed moleтАФthe only plas
wizardry in which Dorcas had ever had to indulge, since by nature she had no marks there a
all.

She woke near noon, after an unpleasant dream she attributed to that new shipment of
wineтАж until she rolled on her side and feltтАж different. Where her slender supple belly had
been, capable of all those enticing ripples hither and yon, she now hadтАж She prodded the s
bulging mass and essayed a ripple. Nothing happened. Dorcas thought of her burgeoning ba
balanceтАФnot nearly as much as she wanted to retire onтАФand groaned.

Then she wrapped herself in an uncharacteristic garmentтАФopaque and voluminousтАФand
sought the advice of her plastic wizard.
 Mirabel Stonefist had done her best to avoid it, but she'd been snagged by the Finance
Committee of the Ladies Aid & Armor Society. Instead of a pleasant morning in her
sister-in-law's garden, watching the younglings at play, she was spending her off-duty day a
the Ladies' Hall, peering at the unpromising figures on a parchment roll.

"And just after we ordered the new steps the court ladies wanted, they all quit coming,"
Blanche-the-Blade said. "I haven't seen hide nor hair of them for weeksтАФ"

"They'll be back," Krystal said, buffing her fingernails on her fringed doeskin vest. "The