"Sheri S. Tepper - Beauty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

and put my clothes in it. Then I sat on the chair and felt important. It has arms! Only Papa and Aunt
Terror have chairs with arms. Everyone else sits on benches or stools. While I sat there, I examined the
thing I'd found in the armoire, but there wasn't time really to figure out what it was, so after a time, I put it
under the chair seat, which lifts up to make a storage place, and told myself I would examine it later on.
Doll showed me the privy closet over the moat. The door is in the wainscot beside the fireplace. I'll
have it all to myself. I can see the lake through the little windows. The tiny panes of glass are quite intact
and clear now that the bird droppings have been washed away. There are three windows in a row, and
the middle one goes all the way to the floor and opens on a balcony where a kind of pole juts out over
the stableyard. Martin calls it a spar, and says he'll fix the pulley and put a rope on it tomorrow, so that
water and firewood can be hauled up from the stableyard below. By late afternoon everyone was
finished with the cleaning and went off, leaving the room neat and sweet-smelling with my lute hung on the
wall, a pitcher of water and a bowl to wash in on the chest, a kettle by the fire for hot water, the
woodbox filled, all my things tucked away, and me here alone, looking around at the sky like a bird from
its nest.
Without a carpet or rushes, the floors will be very cold. Without tapestries, the walls will be even
colder. Still, the hooks are still there to put wall hangings on, if I can find some, and the worst of the cold
weather is over. It will be warm enough for a night or two, until Sibylla leaves and I can steal my carpet
back from my old room. I must stop writing and go down to supper.

Though we made a noisy enough bustle getting the tower room cleaned, it seems the tower is so high
and remote no one heard us. None of the aunts noticed where I went; they all spoke as though I'd moved
into a room in Papa's wing. I suppose Sibylla and her mama think that's what I've done. At table this
evening she peered at me as a chicken does at a bug, acting very discontented and disappointed, as
though she had been counting on my making a fuss about moving, perhaps, which would have given her
something to complain to Papa about. Poor fool woman. She doesn't know Papa.
"All settled?" he asked them vaguely, not waiting for an answer. "Good. It's always good to get
settled." Then he went back to talking with Father Raymond about the pilgrimages he intends to make
before and after the wedding while Sibylla sat there, caparisoned like a tournament horse, playing with a
slice of overdone venison and staring at the back of his neck. I thought of telling her that's mostly what
she's going to see of him. The back of his neck as he plans some journey or the back of all of him as he
rides away.

[The device Beauty found in the tower room was one I, Carabosse, had left there for her: a
clock. It has my name on it, and I hope it will serve as an introduction so she will not be
completely surprised, later, when we meet. We plan for her to leave Westfaire, which is
conspicuous now and will be even more so, and go to another place, a hidden place where she is
unlikely to ever encounter the Dark Lord. Thus far, things are progressing precisely as Israfel and
I expected they would, as the Pool showed they would. The immediate future is usually quite clear
in the Pool, and we had foreseen Sibylla. We had anticipated the succession of events leading to
Beauty's occupation of the tower. I had even foreseen her pleasure in it.
What I had not anticipated are my own feelings. I fear I am growing fond of the girl. She has
something none of her fairy godmothers gave her, something that came entirely from her human
heritage. It is a kind of courage. An indomitability. Like a buoyant little boat, she pops to the top
of every wave. Loquacious though she is (and Father Raymond was perfectly right about that),
even a little arch at times (and why shouldn't she be? Most of her aunts have exactly that
manner), still, she has something attractive about her. Perhaps it is the outward sign of what we
did to her, Israfel and I.]


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