"Sherwood Smith - Crown and Court Duet - 01 - Crown Duel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Sherwood)

ONE

THE BROKEN SHUTTER IN THE WINDOW CREAKED A warning. I flung myself across the table,
covering as best I could my neat piles of papers, as a draft of cold wind scoured into the room. Dead
leaves whispered on the stone floor, and the corners of my moat of papers rustled. Something crashed to
the floor behind me. I turned my head. It was the soup bowl I'd set that morning on an old, warped
three-legged stool and promptly forgotten.

The rotted blue hanging in the doorway billowed, then rippled into quiescence. The whispers and rattles
in the room stilled, and I sat up with care and looked at the bowl. Could it be mended? I knew Julen
would be angry with me. Julen was the blacksmith's sister, and the mother of my friend Oria. After my
mother died she looked after me, and she had of late taken over cooking for us. Crockery was hard to
come by these days.

I reached for the pieces, my blanket rippedтАФand cold leaked up my arm.

I sat back on my cushion, staring down in dismay at the huge tear at my elbow. I did not look forward to
the darning task aheadтАФbut I knew that Julen would give me one of those looks she was so good at and
calmly say that practicing my darning would teach me patience.

"Mel?"

The voice was Bran's. He tapped outside the door, then lifted the hanging. "Meliara, it's time to go see
Papa."

Ordinarily Branaric never called me Meliara, but I was too distracted to notice right then.

"Bran!" I leaped to my feet. "I did itтАФjust finished! Look!" I pulled him into the room, which had once
been a kind of parlor for the servants, back when the castle had had plenty of servants. Pointing proudly
at the table, I said, "I know how to cheer Papa, Bran. I've found us a way to pay this year's taxes! It's
taken me two days, but I really believe I have it. It'll buy us another yearтАФyou know we need another
year. Look," I babbled, stooping down to tap each pile of papers. "Every village, every town in Tlanth,
and what it has, what it owes, and what it needs. Not counting the gold we set aside for our Denlieff
mercenariesтАФ"

"Mel."

I looked up, my mouth still moving; but when I saw the stricken look in Bran's dark blue eyes, all the
plans fled from my mind as if that cold wind had swept them into the shadowy corners with the dead
leaves.

Branaric looked back at me, his face suddenly unfamiliar. My brother always smiledтАФwith his mouth, his
eyes, even the little quirk in his straight brows. Julen once said that he'd been born smiling, and he'd
probably die the same. But there was no smile on his wide mouth now.

"Papa?" I asked, my throat suddenly hurting.

He nodded just once. "Wants us both. We'd better be quick." I batted aside the door hanging and ran
out. My bare feet slapped the cold stone flooring, and I shivered and yanked my blanket closer. I felt the
old wool give and the hole at my elbow widened as I dashed past the warmth of the kitchen and up the