"Melanie Rawn - Salve Regina" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

Water.

She was deep in the forest, and did she allow herself to think, she would
know she was hopelessly lost. Did she allow herself to feel, she would be
terrified. But she smelled water, and walked deeper into the forest, where
no daughter of the True Faith should ever go alone, for within lurked
forbidden caves and mysterious groves and strange standing stones no
man could pull down, stones that at each turning of the year were said to
rise up and dance by white wicked moonlight.

And then she heard water, its soft laughter so like her children's
laughter of only last summer that she cried out and ran. No root or vine or
fallen log tripped her on her way, no bush or bramble or branch waylaid
her. She came to a broad stream of clear, laughing water. Soft moss
cushioned its banks like the fat pillows on Madame la Baronne's chair.
Bright flowers nodded above its ripples like Madame's daughters in their
lovely gowns. Old oaks and graceful willows whispered just like Madame's
ladies gossiping around the great hearth that always blazed with fire. She
had seen these splendid things, for she had been in Madame's service
before her marriage. But all the comforts and colors of the distant Chate├вu
were as nothing to the sumptuous miracle of water.

The moss gave gently beneath her aching bones as she fell on her knees
to drink. Water, fresh water, such as she had not tasted in monthsтАФ She
scooped handful after handful into her mouth, over her face, tore off her
dirty scarf and cap and unpinned her hair to rinse the winter's sickness
and grief away.

When her emptiness was filled and her hair spread wet and clean down
her back, she lifted her eyes to the white-gold sunlight and murmured a
prayer of thanksgivingтАФnot to God the Father or Christ the Son, but to the
Blessed Mother whose compassion was surely responsible for this miracle
of water.

And a woman's voice answered her.

"You are most welcome, daughter."

The woman's voice was low and gentle and warm, like a breeze returned
from last summer. She turned, still on her knees, to behold a woman
standing beside an ancient oak. Neither young nor old, dark nor fair,
smiling nor solemnтАФand yet all these things at the same time. Her beauty
was of face and form, but also of spirit that gleamed in her eyes that were
all the colors of the forest: earth-brown, willow-green, sun-gold. She wore
simple robes of white, gathered at waist and shoulder. Around her throat
coiled a necklace of gold, and at her wrists wrapped matching bracelets.

All the numbness and all the pain were gone. Covering her face with her
hands, she bowed low to the Blessed Mother.