The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection
- Автор: Датлоу Эллен, Виндлинг Терри
- Год: 1992
- Язык: английский
- Год: St.Martin’s Press
- Жанр: Ужасы
Электронная книга - «The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection». Краткое содержание книги:
“I don’t,” Richard said. “This was after. And I didn’t kill him. Tim somebody.”
“No lie! Tim Porker? Half-grown mustache, big ears? Said he hurt himself falling down some stairs. Dirty liar. ”
“No weddings for Richard,” Alec said. He’d regained his aplomb, but was still eyeing Missy warily from across the room. “He is morally opposed to the buying and selling of heiresses.”
“No, I'm not. It’s just not interesting work, being a wedding guard. It doesn’t mean anything anymore, just rich people showing they can afford swordsmen to make their procession look pretty. It’s no—”
"Challenge,” Alec finished for him. "You know, we could set that to music, you say it so often, and hawk it on the street as a ballad. What a good thing for the rich that other swordsmen aren’t too proud to take their money, or we’d never see an heiress safely bedded down. What’s the reward offered for the runaway? Is there one? Or is she damaged goods already?”
"There’s a reward for information. But you have to go Uptown to get it.”
"I’m not above going Uptown,” said Lucie haughtily; “I’ve been there before. But I don’t know as I’d turn in a girl that’s run away for love. ...”
“Ohh,” bawled Rosalie across the tavern; "is that what you call it?”
"Speaking of money,” Alec said, rattling the dicebox, “is anyone interested in a small bet on whether I can roll multiples of three three times running?” Richard got up to go. When Alec had drunk enough to become interested in mathematical odds, the evening’s entertainment was over for him. St. Vier was not a gambling man.
The Riverside streets were dark, but St. Vier knew his way between the close-set houses, past the place where the broken gutter overflowed, around the potholes of pried-up cobbles, through the back alleys and home. His own lodgings were in a cul-de-sac off the main street; part of an old townhouse, a discarded veteran of grander days. Richard lived on the second story, in what had once been the music rooms.
On the ground floor, Marie’s rooms were dark. He stopped before the front door: in the recessed entryway, there was a flash of white. Cautiously St. Vier drew his sword and advanced.
A small woman practically flung herself onto his blade. “Oh help!” she cried shrilly. “You must help me!”
"Back off,” said St. Vier. It was too dark to see much but her shape. She was wearing a heavy cloak, and something about her was very young. “What’s the matter?”
“I am desperate,” she gasped. "I am in terrible danger. Only you can help me! My enemies are everywhere. You must hide me.”
“You’re drunk,” said Richard, although her accent wasn’t Riverside. "Go away before you get hurt.”
The woman fell back against the door. “No, please. It means my life.”
“You had better go home,” Richard said. To speed her on her way, he said, "Do you need me to escort you somewhere? Or shall I hire you a torch?”
"No!” It sounded more annoyed than desperate, but quickly turned back to pleading: "I dare not go home. Please listen to me. I am—a Lady of Quality. My parents want to marry me to a man I hate—an old miser with bad breath and groping hands.”
"That’s too bad,” Richard said politely, amused in spite of the inconvenience. "What do you want me to do about it? Do you want him killed?”
"Oh! Oh. No. Thank you. That is, I just need a place to stay. Until they stop looking for me.”
Richard said, "Did you know there’s a reward out for you?”
“There is?” she squeaked. “But—oh. How gratifying. How . . . like them.”
“Come upstairs.” St. Vier held the door open. “Mind the third step; it’s broken. When Marie gets back, you can stay with her. She’s a, she takes in customers, but I think propriety says you’re better off with her than with me.”
“But I’d rather stay with you, sir!”
In the pitch-black of the stairs, Richard halted. The girl almost stumbled into him. “No,” St. Vier said. “If you’re going to start that, you’re not coming any farther. ”
“I didn’t—” she squeaked, and began again: “That’s not what I meant at all. Honestly.”
Upstairs, he pushed open the door and lit a few candles. “Oh!” the girl gasped. “Is this—is this where you—”
“I practice in this room,” he said. “The walls are wrecked. You can sit on that chaise, if you want—it’s not as rickety as it looks.” But the girl went over to the wall, touching the pockmarks where his practice sword had chipped holes in the old plaster. Her fingertips were gentle, almost reverent.
It was an old room, with traces of its former grandeur clinging about the edges in the form of gilded laurel-leaf molding and occasional pieces of cherub. The person who had last seen fresh paint there had long since turned to dust. The only efforts that its present occupants had made to decorate it were an expensive tapestry hung over the fireplace, and a couple of very detailed silver candlesticks, a few leather-bound books, and an enamel vase, scattered about the room in no discernible order.
“I’d offer you the bed,” said Richard, “but it would annoy Alec. Just make yourself comfortable in here.”
With the pleasantly light feeling of well-earned tiredness, the swordsman drifted into the room that held his big carven bed and his chests for clothes and swords, undoing the accoutrements of his trade: unbuckling the straps of his sword belt, slipping the knife sheath out of his vest. He paced the room, laying them down, unlacing and unpeeling his clothes, and got into bed. He was just falling asleep when he heard Alec’s voice in the other room:
“Richard! You’ve found us a servant after all—how enterprising of you!”
“No—” he started to explain, and then thought he’d better get up to do it.
The girl was hunched up at the back of the chaise longue, looking awed and defenseless, her cloak still wrapped tight around her. Alec loomed over her, his usual untoward clutter of unruly limbs. Sometimes drinking made him graceful, but not tonight.
“Well,” the girl was offering hopefully, “I can cook. Make up the fire. Carry water. ”
Richard thought, That’s the second time I’ve heard that today. He started to say, “We couldn’t ask a Lady of Quality—”
“Can you do boots?” Alec asked with interest.
“No,” Richard stated firmly before she could say yes. “No servants.”
“Well,” Alec asked peevishly, “then what’s she doing here? Not the obvious, I hope.”
“Alec. Since when am I obvious?”
“Oh, never mind.” Alec turned clumsily on his heel. “I’m going to bed. Have fun. See that there’s hot shaving water in the morning.”
Richard shrugged apologetically at the girl, who was staring after them in fascination. It was a shrug meaning, Don’t pay any attention to him; but he couldn’t help wondering if there would be hot water to shave with. Meanwhile, he meant to pay attention to Alec himself.
Alec woke up unable to tell where his limbs left off and Richard’s began. He heard Richard say, “This is embarrassing. Don’t move, Alec, all right?”
A third person was in the room with them, standing over the bed with a drawn sword. “How did you get in here?” Richard asked.
The pug-faced boy said, “It was easy. Don’t you recognize me? My enemies are everywhere. I think I should, you know, get some kind of prize for that, don’t you? I mean, I tricked you, didn't I?”
St. Vier eased himself onto his elbows. “Which are you, an heiress disguised as a snotty brat, or a brat disguised as an heiress?”
“Or,” Alec couldn’t resist adding, “a boy disguised as a girl disguised as a boy?” “It doesn’t matter,” St. Vier said. “Your grip is too tight.”
“Oh—sorry.” Still keeping the sword’s point on target, the kid eased his grip. “Sorry—I’ll work on it. I knew I’d never get in like this. And girls are safe with you; everyone knows you don’t like girls.”