[Wise Child 03] Colman by Furlong Monica

Author:Furlong, Monica [Furlong, Monica]
Language: ita
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2004-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

The days began to pass and nothing very much did happen. I saw Cormac once or twice when he was sent down to the kitchen with a message. He was more surprised to see me than Wise Child had been. We slipped together behind a door into a pantry and had a brief conversation. After I had explained to him, a bit shamefacedly, how I had decided to come to Caerleon after all, I asked him whether he saw any opportunity for us to take action. He looked me full in the face and said, “Colman, it is an odd thing for a grown-up to say, but I do have more faith in Wise Child’s wisdom than I have in my own. She is convinced this is the right thing for us to do, and she has convinced me, or I would not be here. It may take days or weeks or months, but there will be a chance to make things different. Of that I am sure.”

I have always liked and trusted Cormac, and I went back to my work feeling more confident about the enterprise.

Meanwhile, I was getting to know some of the other people I worked among. Some of the boys were nice, and we played games together in the evenings, flinging about a rag we made into a ball, swimming in the stream that ran through the castle as the evenings grew warmer, wrestling and teasing one another. I did not like any of the cooks very much‍—they always seemed to be in a hurry and bad-tempered, perhaps because Meroot demanded so much of them‍—but I was rather fascinated by a woman who used to come down into the kitchen two or three times a day to give them Meroot’s orders. She was thin and elderly, dressed slightly eccentrically in bright-colored silks that did not suit her complexion, but she was cheerful and gave Meroot’s orders in a loud, affable voice, ignoring the groans and complaints they often invoked.

“My lady would like stuffed swans for supper with a garnish of blackbirds,” she would say. “My lord wishes for a tart of lark’s tongue with a dressing of clotted cream and pepper.”

I don’t know why, but she stuck in my mind as a woman without fear, and this seemed unusual at Caerleon. Even those of us who never saw Meroot and the Gray Knight lived in the knowledge that they were people who inspired dread among their servants. There were stories of horrible punishments inflicted on those who had the misfortune to attend them directly. Even Dame Vawn and the cooks, who rarely met Meroot face-to-face, were afraid of her.

I described the elderly lady, who was called Juliot, to Wise Child, who had never seen her. Then one day, when we were eating our noon meal, Juliot emerged from the kitchens and came out into the sunshine, where she stood for a few moments in the light.

“Quick! Look!” I said to Wise Child. “That’s the woman I told you about.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.