"Wentworth-AsYouSow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

K.D. WENTWORTH

AS YOU SOW

The market stalls teemed with chattering wives and white-bearded old men whose
arguing voices vied with the screech of the gulls overhead in the ice-blue
spring sky. Ungern smelled the salt spray in the breeze and wished he could
watch the boats in the harbor instead of returning to break his back in the
landlord's endless flax fields.

"Birdseed!" a querulous voice rose over all the others. "Come and buy my fine
seed!"

Ungern craned his head, trying to see to the end of the cobbled street. Yes,
that was him, Konstantin Poeg, the last birdseed merchant in all of Estonia. He
felt a surge of relief. Sonya would have flayed the hide off him if he had
arrived too late.

The old peddler, a small, bristly man with wild-looking eyes, plucked at the
burlap bags laid out before him on a wobbly plank table. "So, friend, what sort
of birds shall you plant this year?"

Ungern reached into his pocket. "Nightingales." He laid a single copper coin
down on the peddler's table.

"Nightingales." Poegstroked his bushy write beard. "Well, if I had some left,
they would cost two coppers a seed. As it is, I'm afraid I sold all I had three
villages ago."

"Oh." In his mind, Ungem saw how his wife's raisin-black eyes would stare holes
through his body if he came home without her seeds. She meant to have
nightingales this summer, and if she didn't get her way, there would be no peace
or comfort in his one-room cottage for much longer than he cared to think about.
He cleared his throat. "Haven't you got something else for one copper?"

"Now, let me see." The old man poked through his heap of burlap sacks, then
picked one up. "What about some fine fat geese? I can let you have two of my
best grays for one copper."

A tantalizing vision of roast goose and golden-yoked boiled eggs floated through
Ungern's head~ then he sighed and slid the lonely coin back into his pocket. "My
wife has her heart set on songbirds and one copper is all we have."

"One copper will not even cover my expenses on songbirds!" The peddler leaned
over the plank table. "I suppose you think just anyone can harvest birdseed.
Well, if you don't find the eggs before the new life quickens, they hatch all by
themselves in the ordinary way. Have you ever tried climbing a towering tree to
find a nest, not to mention a cliff, or fought your way into a bramble thicket?