Читать книгу I’m not from here. Book one. Cry baby - Alexey Glazyrin - Страница 3

In the predawn twilight, a loud and demanding cry of a child was suddenly heard. The watchman at the monastery gate wided his eyes in surprise and did not immediately understand where the sound was coming from.

But it’s not easy, and why the hell is it to bawl like that, the cocks still haven’t even throated, but no, he won’t always dawn to jump up and run to open the gates, what kind of service is this.

So, slowly moving away from sleep, thoughts began to stir in the head of the old gate guard Pantelei, who had been guarding these very gates to this same convent for several years, God knows where, where Makar did not drive calves.

Pantelei didn’t have much geography, he didn’t even know such a word, he was just used to believing that the monastery in which he had been working for more than a dozen years was, well, very far from places where real life boils.

Grunting, getting up from the lodge bed of his gatehouse, and reluctantly shuffling to the gate, he threw back the latch and opened the gate in the large monastery gate.

In the dawn dusk, just barely dawned dawn, stepping behind the gate of the monastery gate, he almost stepped on a basket from where the sound of the summer dawn came.

Here is an attack, the old man thought, there is no cross on these basurmans in sundresses, they will bring him in the hem, and they will deprive him of his old sleep. In his memory, standing for many years at this gate, this is far from the first case when local women threw babies into this convent in this way.

He doesn’t know that he’s a beast offspring, the local guard thought further that the nuns wouldn’t leave the babies and would always give shelter to the orphans, he even felt a little feeling for thinking how hard it would be for orphans to start life without a mother.

The old man grabbed a weighty basket, brought it into the courtyard, then returned to the gate and creakily closed the gate, throwing a heck, turned around and shuffled with his onuks went, holding the basket on his bent arm in the cell to mother abbess.

Having reached with his burden, which stopped making sounds, but only fumbled in the basket, to the doors of the mother’s bedchamber to the abbess, modestly called the cell, he coughed and knocked on the heavy oak door.

For a few moments nothing happened, then the old man knocked on the door more persistently and louder. Finally, a low, almost masculine voice came from behind the door, with obvious displeased intonations:

– What, Pantelei? Do you tear yourself away from prayer, or don’t you know that I’m preparing for matins?

The gatekeeper paused a little, and once again coughed, answered:

“Mother is such a thing, they threw the baby to us in turn, where to put it then?”

They were delivered outside the door. Heavy footsteps and creak of floorboards were heard, the door clanging open with a hook and in the doorway slightly illuminated by a lamp light from the far corner of the room, a portly figure of a woman in monastic vestments was drawn.

Looking fearfully at the puny figure of the old man and carrying in his hand, she waved her hand, as if inviting to enter, silently turned and moved into the depths of the room.

Pantelei followed, dragged the burden to the middle of the cell and set the basket on the floor, at the feet of the abbess. He stomped a little, groaned and walked a few steps back to the door, where he stood silently, waiting for further instructions.

Silence fell in the room, from time to time disturbed by a slight snapping of the knuckles of the rosary, which the nun’s fingers habitually fingered. The silence dragged on, the abbess was obviously thinking something.

The watchman, shifting from foot to foot, coughed slightly, which brought the nun out of his reverie. She threw a sidelong glance at him and ordered not taking the baby out, to swaddle slightly and see what was between the legs of the child.

Pantelei was lively enough for his age, he obeyed the order, put his hand under the baby, raised it and lightly shook the rags into which he was wrapped, looked at the indicated place, then grunted reported:

– Malets, mother, peasant rank means.

The abbess, silently listened to the report, then moved to a corner where the lamp did not burn brightly, illuminating the faces on the icons, and began to whisper prayers softly. After reading some canon, Pantelei did not very well understand the intricacies of Tauly Savior, Toli of the Mother of God, having finished rustling her lips, the nun finally turned and ordered to bring her sister Martha, the key keeper and counselor of the Mother Superior.

After some time, Martha’s sister, skinny and tall as a pole, appeared in Pantele’s cell, Pantelei loomed behind her.

“Pantelei, what are you hanging around here, go to your place, you have already done your job, brought us a present.”

Grumbled not quite abbess. He muttered something under his breath, reluctantly turned around, and shuffled along the corridor. After waiting for the watchman’s figure to disappear, she turned with some irony to Martha.

– Well, that sister in Christ, admire the next present.

And she waved her hand toward the bench behind her. Martha went to the shop on which the basket with the baby stood, cast a glance at the basket with the contents, and without saying a word stared at the abbess, waiting for the continuation, she knowing her mentor, understood that she had already decided everything.

– Tell me Marfush, how are you doing with the noblewoman Vasilisa, how is she feeling?

“The noblewoman is weak, and all the tears are pouring, she is sad that not the heir was born, but the next daughter.”

Reported to her boss Martha, she in this monastery knew everything or almost everything and everyone, it was not in vain that she was the right hand of the abbess.

“Sad, you say, that’s good.”

The Mother Superior spoke in thought. There was silence in the room, the abbess went deeper into thought, on her usually calm and domineering face, now shadows of doubt were running through, reflecting some internal thought process, careful consideration of a complex decision.

– You’re here, Marfusha, take the baby to the sisters that they took birth, let them take care, and let no one else know, and let them not talk about how the birth went and who was born.

Yes, and Panteleya warn you to keep your mouth shut, and tell him, he’ll chat, I’ll drive him out, do you understand everything?

She nodded her head, grabbed the basket with the baby, and left the cell, closing the door to the room behind her. The abbess knelt before the icons, and while baptized she whispered the words of prayer.

What Mother Anthony had planned before carrying out, required prayer, otherwise she would be tormented by doubt in her soul, and it would interfere with her plan, she knew from experience, and she was always guided by the rule, so long as there are doubts, do not start a business.