Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗
She galloped through the gardens down to the stableyard. Slow John turned to watch her go by. The green things he had nurtured were uprooted, torn and scattered beneath the mare's flying hoofs. When she had passed, Slow John stooped and picked up a shredded stem. He lifted it to his mouth and bit into it softly, tasting the sweet sap. He felt no resentment. The plants he grew were meant to be cut and destroyed, just as man is born to die. To Slow John, only the manner of the dying was significant.
He stared after the mare and her rider and felt the same reverence and awe that always overcame him at the moment when he released one of his little sparrows from this mortal existence. He thought of all the condemned souls who died under his hands as his little sparrows. The first time he had set his eyes on Katinka van de Velde he had fallen completely under her spell. He felt that he had waited all his life for this woman. He had recognized in her those mystical qualities that dictated his own existence but, compared to her, he knew that he was a thing crawling in primeval slime.
She was a cruel and untouchable goddess, and he worshipped her. It was as though these torn plants he held in his hands were a sacrifice to that goddess. As though he had laid them on her attar and she had accepted them. He was moved almost to the point of tears by her condescension. He blinked those strange yellow eyes and for once they mirrored his emotion. "Command me," he breathed. "There is nothing that I would not do for you."
Katinka spurred the mare at full gallop up the driveway to the front doors of the residence, and flung herself from its back before it had come fully to rest. She did not even glance at Aboli as he sprang down from the terrace, gathered up the reins and led the mare away to the stableyard.
He spoke gently to the horse in the language of the forests. "She has made you bleed, little one, but Aboli will heal your hurt." In the yard he unbuckled the girth and dried the mare's steaming sweat with the cloth, walking her in slow circles, then watering her before he led her to her stall.
"See where her whip and spurs have cut you. She is a witch," he whispered, as he anointed the torn and bruised corners of the horse's mouth with salve. "But Aboli is here now to protect and cherish you."
Katinka strode through the rooms of the residence, singing softly to herself, her face lit with the afterglow of her loving. In her bedchamber she shouted for Zelda then, without waiting for the old woman to arrive, she stripped off her clothing and dropped it in a heap in the middle of the floor. The winter air through the shutters was cold on her body, which was damp with sweat and the juices of her passion. Her pale pink nipples rose in haloes of gooseflesh and she shouted again, "Zelda, where are you?" When the maid came scurrying into the chamber she rounded on her, "Sweet Jesus, where have you been, you lazy old baggage? Close those shutters! Is my bath ready, or have you been dozing off again in front of the fire?" But her words lacked their usual venom and when she lay back in the steaming, perfumed waters of her ceramic bathtub, which had been carted up from the cabin in the stern of the galleon, she was smiling warmly and secretly to herself.
Zelda hovered around the tub, lifting the thick strands of her mistress's hair out of the scented foam and pinning them atop her head, soaping her shoulders with a cloth.
"Don't fuss so! Leave me be for a while!" Katinka ordered imperiously. Zelda dropped the cloth and backed out of the bathroom.
Katinka lay for a while, humming softly to herself and lifting her feet one at a time above the foam to inspect her delicate ankles and pink toes. Then a movement in the steam-clouded mirror caught her attention and she sat up straight and stared incredulously. Quickly she stood up and stepped out of the tub, slipped a towel around her shoulders to soak up the drops of water that ran down her body and crept to the door of her bedroom.
What she had seen in the mirror was Zelda gathering up her soiled clothing from where she had dropped it on the tiles. The old woman stood now with Katinka's under linen in her hands examining the stains upon it. As Katinka watched, she lifted the cloth to her face and sniffed at it like an old bitch scenting the entrance to a rabbit warren.
"You like the smell of a man's ripe cream, do you?" Katinka asked coldly.
At the sound of her voice Zelda spun about to face her. She hid the clothing behind her back and her cheeks went pale as ash as she stammered incoherently.
"You dried-up old cow, when did you last have a sniff of it?" Katinka asked.
She dropped the towel and glided across the floor, slim and sinuous as an erect female cobra and her gaze as icy and venomous. Her riding whip lay where she had dropped it and she scooped it up as she passed.
Zelda backed away in front of her. "Mistress," Zelda whined, "I was worried only that your pretty things might be spoiled."
"You were snuffling it up like a fat old sow with a truffle," Katinka told her, and her whip arm flashed out. The lash caught Zelda in the mouth. She squealed and fell back on the bed.
Katinka stood over her, naked, and plied the whip across her back and arms and legs, swinging with all her strength, so that the layers of fat wobbled and shook on the maid's limbs as the lash bit into them.
"This is a pleasure too long denied, Katinka screamed, her own fury increasing as the old woman howled and wriggled on the bed. "I have grown weary of your thieving ways and your gluttony. Now you revolt me with this prurient trespass into intimate areas of my life, you sneaking, spying, whining old baggage."
"Mistress, you are killing me."
"Good so! But if you live you will be on board the Standvastigheid when she sails for Holland next week. I can abide you around me no longer. I will send you back in the meanest cabin without a penny of pension. You can eke out the rest of your days in the poorhouse." Katinka was panting wildly now, raining her blows on Zelda's head and shoulders.
"Please, mistress, you would not be so cruel to your old Zelda, who wet-nursed you as a baby."
