Читать книгу Sapphire fairy. Prose in English - Natalia Patratskaya - Страница 2

Before the start of classes remained about ten minutes. Two girls could afford to stand on the street for a few minutes. At first glance, the young people were struck by their complete opposite. They were united only by ten minutes, which both were ready to spend on idle talk.

“If a girl goes in high heels, then she is on full alert,” said Katerina, an unusually beautiful fairy with sapphire eyes, with hair to the waist, who covered her as well as a mink coat, and glittered so skillfully that it was clear that the master stylist worked on them. She looked at the girls passing by her and probably, therefore, made her statement.

– Katerina, you better say what you wash your hair? They shine and sparkle! – Tamara asked her question, a fairy with gray eyes, white, dyed hair that did not flow anywhere, but simply stuck out from any wind in all directions. She was standing in old sneakers, and her heels didn’t bother her at all.

“Tamara, I’m talking to you about heels, and you ask me questions about your hair,” Katerina complained, who wasted her time, time and gold coins on complex hair coloring and used shampoos from the best companies in the human world, but considered it to be unnecessary. Katerina towered ten centimeters above Tamara at the expense of heels on shoes worthy of a podium, and not a tile in front of the school.

Opposite them there were two pumped up guys, they talked about it is not known about what, but they measured the eyes up and down the girls. Judging by the frequency of views, the guys in their sympathies for the girls safely divided.

– Cyril, why don’t you keep your eyes on Katerina’s heels? Do you like shoes? And you look at her tomorrow! Our first pair will be physical education, so both of them will come in sneakers! There will be no difference between girlfriends at all! – Feofan remarked.

“I know Katerina will hide her hair in a ponytail and become modest, but today she looks great. I would have approached her, ‘said Kirill dreamily, and tore off a leaf from a hydrangea,’ otherwise we stand here with you, like two palm trees in the desert.”

– You like heels and drawn to the lyrics. Kirill, you come to Katerina, tell me that you did your homework ahead of time, she will immediately be interested in you, “said Feofan.

A group of students passed by two couples, who immediately went into the building. Following the band, the guys are gone. Katerina, seeing that Kirill had disappeared with the crowd, wanted to go after him, but could not move. She wanted to complain about the situation to Tamara, but she disappeared after the others.

Katerina lifted one leg above the ground, but the second leg did not follow the first. Gorgeous shoe stuck tightly to the asphalt. A cascade of hair sank to the ground with her. She stood on one leg on a huge heel without an additional point of support, portraying a heron, trying to pull her shoe off the ground with her hands.

Suddenly, she felt that an unknown force lifts her from the ground. She thought that Kirill had returned. But it was not him. It was a robot, which ended the ladder, hanging from a flying saucer, where she was a minute later with one shoe.

Inside the flying saucer was a semicircular control panel and three chairs, tightly bolted to the bottom or floor. Behind the backs of the chairs was a semicircular wall, behind which was another semicircular cabin. In one chair sat an imposing young man with long ears-antennas. In the second chair sat a gray-haired old man with a beard and with laughing eyes. It was Afanasy Afanasyevich himself.

Looking closely at him, Katerina calmed down.

The voice of the announcer came from above:

– Katerina, take the third chair, it is yours at the moment. Calm down! With you everything will be fine! You are on board a flying saucer 08. Wear golden boots on your feet, they stand next to your seat. Put on a golden jacket and the same pants, they lie on the chair. Your mini dress will go down for a T-shirt. Everything. Yes, get acquainted, Prince Afanasy Afanasyevich, the owner of the Copper Triangle, is sitting next to you. My name is Theophanes. Cyril sits in the cockpit. In front of you is the control panel. Changed clothes? Sit in a chair.

Katerina complied with all orders and sat next to the prince. Before the old man was a control panel with a smaller number of touch buttons than before Theophan. The girl looked at the inscriptions on the buttons. And she felt sad because of her own awkwardness. She had a feeling that she was not at ease. She looked around at her golden outfit hiding the figure, and stood waiting. She felt the flying object pick up speed.

Afanasy Afanasyevich spoke in a raspy voice, he told Feofan how he understood the purpose of the flight. Catherine shuddered at the raspy voice. She was scared. She realized that they fly away into the past of people. My head flashed the thought that it was not dressed in the fashion of past centuries, and in general could be prepared in advance for the flight, at least morally and financially.

“Katerina,” said Theophan, “we could not warn you about the flight for many reasons. The motive of the flight you would perceive pathetically. We decided to check out one fairy tale. Smile We fly to the area of the Copper Mountains. Your task is to become a lady of the Earth. Remember the movie of people, where the mistress of Copper Mountain portrayed a great actress? You have a triangle eyebrow, and that is what bribed us. Your appearance and asks for a big screen.

– I understand, you send me five hundred years into the past. Then I will plait the braid, otherwise I have a suit unfit for the Lady of the Bottom. What time of year will we get?

– The most painful question. For a hundred years I can guess, but I cannot predict the time of year. I know you can sew and knit. Do it yourself. My father, Afanasy Afanasyevich and I, will definitely find you. The three of us will go into the past, but we still know from experience that we can end up in different places. You will be served by lizards. Afanasy Afanasyevich with lizards will find a common language.

– And you could not just make the scenery and make a film in our bright world?

– We need historical accuracy. Katerina, the girl you are hardened. Nothing, get out of the situation. Are you ready to fly? Attention: minute readiness. We fly over the Copper Mountains. Katerina and Cyril catapult. I will leave the ship in a secret place. See you in the past!

Everything is nothing, but something did not work out in Theophan’s calculations. Katerina felt that the time around her had changed dramatically. She ejected and regained consciousness in the snow. The people of the Brown-eyed Khan drove past her and took her like golden prey. The girl was tied up and laid on a horse. She did not moan, but only tightly clenched her lips and teeth so that she could not be heard. Katerina thought that it would be necessary to fall off her horse on the next ascent. She found it difficult to escape with her legs tied. She wanted to be found, which means that the best way to escape is to take place on the outskirts of the village.

With tied arms and legs, Katerina woke up on the outskirts of the village. The girl looked up and saw a strange village in front of her. Smoke billowed over the pipes of the houses. A man was riding a sleigh pulled by one horse through the village. Suddenly he perked up when he saw a golden log on the snow.

Having approached closer, the man saw a strange girl. The guy jumped off a wooden sled and walked over to Catherine. He looks, and in the snow lies a beautiful girl with golden hair in golden clothes, but with her arms and legs tied. A man put it in a sleigh and brought it home.

The peasant’s wife ran for the healer. Katerina woke up in a house where, instead of glasses, bullish bubbles were strung on the windows. The girl slowly came to life in the hut of the local healer, smelling of dried herbs. She was physically healed, but could not answer at all the questions about who she was and where she came from.

What did people live at the time? What fed? There is a fish in the river – they will catch it. There is a beast in the forest – they will be trapped or killed with a spear, an arrow. There is a glade – sow rye. Here are fed. And whoever had a cow or a goat were those rich people. Who knew how to be friends with the bees, those who led the honey. To live in the village, you had to work in the field or keep animals.

Katerina quickly realized that she had to work in the village to live.

She remembered the lessons of home economics at school, the most simple lessons of cutting and sewing. She sewed herself a long dress made of white canvas like a nightgown, expanded it with patterns. But this dress wanted to take the wife of the village rich man. She sold the dress for groceries. She took the bag and went through the mountains, down the valleys, and in the evening she returned home. So she began to walk on the Copper Mountains.

When Katerina’s food ended, she sewed a dress, gave it away for groceries, and again went to the mountains. They dragged her mountains indescribably. She found a large cave in the mountains. And as if the light in the cave was. But in the place where the light went, it could rain. She went to the dungeon, mica found. She fixed mica in places where the light penetrated into the cave. And the rain to her in the cave is no longer falling. The temperature in the cave was more constant than on the ground, which attracted the girl.

Katerina decorated the cave. She made herself a bed of a bag of straw, and the heat began to lie in her cave. The girl in the dungeon found sapphires, exchanged them for the bear’s skin from the hunters. So she began to live in a cave. He will find what is inside the mountains – he will exchange in the village for the necessary thing in her household. And Katerina herself was called the Lady of the Subsoil.

The girl increasingly learned the secrets of the mountains. She possessed vision like in cats and saw everything well in the dark. The mountains are used to her and she to them.

People in the villages that were located near the mountains were accustomed to the fact that the Lady of the Minerals lives in the mountains, who began to understand what the mountains are rich with, and kept people in touch with clever people about this.

She knew where the copper ore was, where the iron was, where the coal for the furnace could be found. She no longer wore firewood from the ground to the cave, but coal also burned hotter, and it was needed less than firewood. People themselves products she carried in exchange for copper or coal. Once a girl found shiny streaks in the rock, she found gems.

She began to sew beautiful clothes, to sheathe stones. People from the villages began to respect the lady of the Subsoil even more, they bowed to her in the belt, when they went with a request, or she was carried as a gift. Katerina tamed lizards to serve themselves, many of them at that time in the mountains ran around, she fed them. And then the lizards began to bring to her what she asked. People came to visit her, they all understood.

The cave Katerina adorned the palace, everything glistened and shone in her, shined with light through mica. The Lady of the Subsoil has reached the well-being of her labor and has become bored in a cave. She wanted people to appreciate the beauty of her and her home, or maybe she wanted human love.

The girl was growing up. Once a guy came, he seemed familiar to Catherine. She called herself Katerina. In his head like a lightning bolt passed and went out. And Katerina tried to remember how she knew a guy named Cyril, but she could not. At the desire of her as if by fairy-tale decree, this beautiful guy appeared in the cave opening.

Their eyes met with astonishment, love was born and lit up in gems on the clothes of the ladies of the Subsoil. The guy in sandals, in a long shirt, embroidered in the throat, and could not move from the spot. Cyril, and this was his own person, he stood and looked at Katerina, dressed in a dress dazzling with gems. He noticed the beauty of the cave palace. The guy turned out to be by nature the same as the Lady of the Hinterlands: he did not want to feed the cows, did not want to sow rye, did not want to catch fish and go hunting.

He stayed with the ladies bowels. They began to work together inside the mountains. Cyril got accustomed in the cave, as if he got home. Lizards recognized him. Revived the dungeon. Kirill improved the life of the Lady of the Subsurface by the fact that he himself made her household utensils and decorated them with gems. The presence of the young man did not irritate the Lady of the Subsoil for the time being, but one day she was bored with the bustle of Cyril, and she began to leave the underground palace more and more often.

For a long time, semi-precious, precious stones, dark blue sapphires were valued among women. At the time of the Brown-eyed Khan, many of those stones were found in the Copper Mountains. And those mountains from north to south stretched. Many people from his troops left in the mountains, became the indigenous people, tried to find all the gems for the Khan and their women.

People with gray eyes and brown-eyed people from the Khan’s army gradually intertwined. Over the five or six centuries, many black-faced people were born. In many families, the mother’s eyes are brown and his father’s gray.

And why did all this happen?

Gray-eyed people were brown-haired, but for three hundred years a brown-eyed yoke did not pass for nothing. There are few families left in the country in which there would be fair-haired, gray-eyed people in several generations. The Khan’s troops did not reach the city of ancient Novgorod, maybe gray-eyed and brown-haired people live in those places?

In the mountains, people from the Khan’s army excavated for a long time. In the mountains they searched for copper ore and docile ore, they almost believed it was gold, copper arrows were made of it, coins were minted and gem stones were found in the mountains.

Were in the army of Khan connoisseurs of semiprecious stones. Khan left his people in the mountains so that they looked for pebbles that please their eyes and protect their health. For a long time the people of the Khan worked in the mountains, with the best local craftsmen they kept the council.

They mined stones on two chests of all colors of the rainbow.

The pebbles are heavy, the pebbles are good, even on their cap, even on women’s jewelry. Those pebbles agreed with the good, and parted with malice.

The stones are all tricky, though inanimate, but there is an incomprehensible power in them. I found out about the brown-eyed khan chests, was delighted. And the stones learned about that and did not want to go to the khan.

People with chests in the mountains got lost. They dragged chests, they were tired, their legs were knocked down, their hands were covered with calluses from the handles, they began to fall from hunger, and they could not find a way out of the mountains, so their bones were twisted around the chests. Lizards ran alongside the chests, they saw the bones of the servants of the khan. They lifted the lid of the chest with gems, they were overjoyed, in the other chest they looked in and danced for joy, and well, they ran to the Lady of the Subsoil.

The lizards were those servants, to please the lady of the Subsoil – they were happy, but she loved them, and did not offend them, and did not confuse them with the roads in the mountains. The chests came to see the lady of Nedra herself, the lizards ran after her like a train. The lizards, headed by Katerina, everyone knew what was being done in the mountains, and Cyril reported everything to Kirill. The lady of the Minerals rejoiced when she saw a set of semi-precious stones, she felt an unprecedented power in them, she realized that they picked up stones with great intelligence, and their dark value was to ensure the health of the person whom they recognize as their master or mistress.

If we are really telling the truth, then these lizards on the orders of Prince Athanasius Afanasyevich were led astray by the servants of the khan. He knew about the work of finding the gems, but decided to give them the opportunity to create a complete collection of stones, and now the Lady of Minerals was the mistress of two chests, giving health and well-being to their master.

The greedy lady of the Subsoil was not, and she understood: to take too much is bad. So those who collected these gems died, their radiance was stronger than what was permitted. You can not collect more than one collection of stones. One collection helps, and from two collections die.

The lady of the subsoil ordered the lizards to hide one chest where it stands, and each lizard to throw one regular stone on the chest. She knew how the khan considered his troops. Hid the chest under a mountain of stones. With the help of Cyril, the lizards placed the second chest on the bear’s skin, grabbed it from all sides and dragged it to the rooms of the Lady of the Subsoil.

This chest was always with her, she did not tell anyone about it. The lizards regularly served the Lady of the Subsurface, food was brought from the ground too. She looked at the gems from the chest, but for a long time the chest could not be opened, the soul did not allow. The lizards did not advise her to keep the chest open.

After some time, a peasant wandered into the mountains to the lady of Nedra, who found her in the snow and took him to his house in the snow. I liked the peasant Lady Nedr. She clouded his thoughts and let go with God. At parting, she put a yellow stone in the peasant’s hand, a gem of unprecedented beauty, unheard of.

A peasant rose to the ground, lay down on a grass-ants, lay for a long time, could not remember anything, but he felt that the heroes came to him. A man jumped to his feet and, well, he ran towards the village. Where he was, where he found the stone – the man did not remember.

He remembered that he was wandering in the mountain caves, saw the light, went to him, and then everything seemed to disappear – and woke up with a stone in his hand. The stone is beautiful and shining, the sun is bright. The man decided about the fact that he does not remember, people do not speak, they say, he found a semi-precious stone, that’s all.

The Brown-eyed Khan could not calm down, that two chests with gems in the mountains remained, he sent his people after them, but the people returned without chests. People did not find Khan’s chests, did not allow them to find their way. The Lady of Nedur kept her chest with stones well. Finding her or her chest was impossible. The chest under the stones was the same, but something in it was superfluous.

Strange things were going on in that dungeon. The beasts that lived nearby died early and a strange death. From the trunk of the ladies of the Subsoil, goodness and health went, but from the buried trunk, the power was evil and people at that time were incomprehensible. None of the people knew and did not know about that chest. But people felt that the place where the chest was buried was not dug there, but they found different bodies of beasts. The people themselves in this damned place tried not to happen, but rumors were coming.

When Khan’s servants collected gems, one little man threw a pebble into that chest not semiprecious, but strange, which he wore in his clothes. The little man was a healthy man until he found this pebble.

He could not throw a pebble just on the ground, he wore it with him for a long time, and found it far from the mountains, when with the army of the Khan he walked along a strange steppe, in the Steppe country, where the locals sang songs and cumbersome.

In those steppes there was one enchanted place, the locals were afraid to go there.

One inhabitant of the steppes dug the land there and died soon, and no one understood why. Strong man was. The birds, the animals died there, their corpses decayed, and the crows did not touch their meat.

“Very bad place,” the residents said about him.

Unexpectedly for Catherine, her journey came to an end. Next to her was the owner of the Copper Triangle – Afanasy Afanasyevich. They came out of the cave of the Lady of Nedra, where a flying saucer and Theophan were waiting for them.

– Katerina, so why did one chest bring a lot of grief, and the other brought a lot of health? You now know the answer to this question.

She strained her convolutions and replied:

– In the second chest lay a radioactive stone.

– Right. You will follow his fate in the next flight, and now jump to your heel shoe.

Katerina came down the rope ladder from the flying saucer to the tiled courtyard. Her foot went into a forgotten shoe. She raised her leg. The foot rose with the shoe. Everything was OK. Students left the building. They surrounded Katerina. They looked at her admiringly.

– What’s the matter? – Catherine was surprised.

– Katerina, you are our hero. The country is proud of your sapphire flight.

And here a miracle happened.

Katerina was pushed into the past, which was with her ancestors in the house of the woman Tanya. Katerina could not move quickly from the past to the present, she was slowly sliding along virtual time.

Katerina was invited to the Marble Palace as the Queen’s maid of honor for a completely different reason. For her time, she was perfectly educated, had amazing beauty, pleasant in all respects – all of these factors became components of the reasons why she appeared in the Marble Palace. Queen maids of honor were most often girls from ancient Slavic clans.

At the responsible royal receptions, all the maid of honor should have been present and depict the crowd, through which the royal couple passed. Against the backdrop of beautiful maid of honor, the importance of the queen increased dramatically. Ambassadors stare at the maid of honor, and this played a positive role in business negotiations – they became more generous and accommodating.

Katerina came satin shoe on the edge of the dress.

– Oh, I almost spoiled the dress, and today is the reception in the palace! – she exclaimed.

Another reception in the Marble Palace was prepared fascinating: the ambassadors were entertained by an auction at which they sold new jewelry. The queen played with the ambassadors in the giveaway, and the ambassadors received gifts for nothing.

An ambassador liked so much the maid of honor of Queen Katerina, a gray-eyed, stately beauty that he gave her a yellow sapphire. Sapphire was fixed in a gold openwork disk, and the rim in its contour was in contact with a round straw box and held tightly in the box, as if someone had hidden the sun in the box.

“Sapphire” The Straw Widow, “said Ambassador Catherine. For security reasons, he decided not to accept the gift of the queen, or his premonition of danger was well developed.

Katerina put the casket with sapphire in the table secretary and locked it.

There was a knock at the door:

– Katerina, Katerina, open the door!

– Mr. Ambassador, I’m already sleeping.

– Sleep with me!

– Not! Not!

– Katerina, I will tell the queen that you are against peace between our countries!

– The Lord is with you, Mr. Ambassador!

The ambassador is gone. Soon came with the queen.

– Katerina, my mother, why do not you listen to Mr. Ambassador? – shouted through the queen’s door.

“Mother Queen, he demands love.”

– Katerina, open the door! Take peace between our countries for your soul!

The queen is gone. Katerina opened the door. Ambassador rushed into the room.

– Katerina, you are lovely! I am yours, my soul!

The ambassador, a thin man, somewhat thinner than the beautiful Katerina, was already dropping ball gowns. Katerina slowly took off her dress. The room was a wide and strong bed. Only now she realized all her mission in the palace. She was taken care of for a long time. But the ambassador was important. The maid of honor screamed, jumped up and ran out of the room.

Sometimes it seemed to Catherine that the moonlight was coming from the secretary. Especially he was clearly visible on winter nights. The light of a sapphire did not frighten her, there was some mystery in it. She lit candles in the candelabra and wrote poems under the glow of sapphire. At such moments, she opened the box and enjoyed the beauty of the stone – and fell asleep with strange fatigue.

Svetlitsa windows facing the embankment of the river. The view from the window was wonderful: the waves were splashing on the granite of the embankment and were lulled at night. If the wind was blowing from the river, it was getting a little cool in the room.

The marble palace was so large and beautiful that Katerina had no need to leave it. Yes, the maid of honor and not allowed to leave the palace. The summer garden was the summer joy of the maid of honor; sometimes they were allowed to go there for a walk. Walks were rare, but the joy of the maid of honor was great.

Parents rarely visited their daughter, such a condition put the queen. But no matter how well the maid of honor fenced off from the outside world, life itself came to the palace. Katerina once saw a magnificent officer in the form of a lancer.

Oh, this form of Ulan with a high headdress and white ribbon over his shoulder made the officer even higher and more attractive for a young girl. Ulan’s gray eyes began to pursue her dreams day and night.

Nobleman Cyril served in light cavalry. The meetings of Catherine and Cyril were unusually short, or so it seemed to them, and therefore completely memorable. Both were in the service of the king and fatherland.

A great joy brought them to the meeting at the ball, where the lancer got for military merits. Katerina bloomed at the sight of the gray eyes of her hero heart. How beautiful to slide on the magnificent parquet of the palace with your favorite lancer!

Life at such moments seemed great.

She knew that life in the palace was full of hidden dangers, it was impossible to say too much here, it was impossible to condemn the actions of the queen.

In order to survive in the palace, it was necessary to cheat, flatter the queen through any ears, whose tongues immediately all reported to the queen’s ears.