Читать книгу Dragon Bride - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 3

The beauty came to his hut in the middle of the night. A village was burning nearby. The smell of fire reached here. When Clement woke up to the stench of smoke, he had the feeling that everything was about to burn, but the beautiful elfish woman he had seen in the woods that morning smiled sweetly and said:

«Don’t worry, the fire is far away! The forest is not on fire!»

He was at once relieved. If she says all is well, it must be so. How could he not believe her? But Clement was worried.

«But the village where I bought the wine and candles is burning. It stands behind the forest edge.»

«It has already burned!» The beauty corrected him without regret in her voice. «The people weren’t very nice.»

«Has anyone survived?»

«It is hardly. Only ghosts. They come often from the ashes of dragon fires.»

«So a dragon burned the village?»

The beauty silently trimmed a cascade of snow-white skirts, covered in a layer of silver sequins as if they were stars. Her bouncy blond curls snaked down her chest and back. The puffed sleeves accentuated the grace of her thin arms. How beautiful she was! Clement regarded her, forgetting to ask how she had managed to get through the latch-locked door.

Only the window was open, but girls in expensive dresses certainly didn’t climb through windows. Clement knew how meticulous court fashions were. It was as if the guest had walked through walls. If she’s from a tribe of elves, that’s no surprise.

«Are you an elf princess?» Clement asked directly.

She only laughed in response. Her laughter was infectious and beautiful, like the ringing of a bell. Her presence in the wretched hut had somehow brightened the air.

«I knew that huntsman who lived here before you, and now there are only bones left of him,» she said.

«But I did not know him!»

«No wonder you didn’t. He was eaten by a dragon before you got here.»

Again she spoke of the dragon. It made Clement uncomfortable to think of it. Surely he’d burned down the nearest village for sport. There would be no place to buy spirits now. He would have to make do with spring water. That’s all right. It’ll be soberer. Perhaps then the wood elves won’t seem so beautiful to him anymore.

«How did you get in?»

«You called me when you were sad for me,» she said in a simple voice. «The boys let me in as soon as they start pining for me. And the dragon comes with me. Don’t you want me to go?»

«No, I don’t. Stay!» He took her words as a joke. How can she be connected to the dragon?

«You have nowhere to sit!» She paced about the hut rustling luxurious skirts.

«This is not a royal mansion.»

«And you do not look too much like a huntsman,» she reproached.

«But I am dressed as a peasant.»

«I look like a pixie, but I have no more than a drop of pixie blood.»

There was not a drop of blood from the peasant race in Clemente, but he remembered that he had to remain incognito. Suddenly she is the beautiful spy of the chief of the black tribes, Shai.

«Who are you?» Clement questioned her. «Where do you live? Do you live in the woods?»

«Well, I live almost in the woods,» she corrected him. «There are a lot of places here that are forbidden to humans, but are open for me.»

«You look like a ghost in the moonlight,» Clement decided. «You must be a moon fairy! I have heard of your kind from my uncle.»

He chuckled as he remembered that he’d seen her during the day too. Moon Fairies cannot appear in daylight.

«I am Raymonda,» the beauty said.

«And I’m Clement, but it is just Clem to my friends…» He should have used an invented name, but he’d already blurted it out. Too late to make amends.

«Would you like to dance the night in a circle of moon fairies or elves? I know some of them. I could set you up with dryads or nocturnes or nymphs or…»

Raymonda curled her fingers as she enumerated. He probably thought she had more than five fingers on each hand.

«I have a fiancée,» Clement muttered reluctantly.

She grinned wickedly at him. «How many fiancées have you got?»

«What do you mean?» Clement didn’t understand. «I haven’t even had one recently. But I happen to be engaged. It’s a family whim! I am waiting here for my betrothed.»

«It is even so!» Raymonda suddenly softened. «You’re faithful! That’s good! I wouldn’t have anything to do with a traitor.»

Her blue eyes suddenly twinkled dangerously, as if there were ice inside her pupils.

«You want to see some magic?» She fluttered her curls into a halo-like blaze, and the cards his uncle had left at Clement’s hut shot up into the air and started shuffling on their own.

«Come on, then!» Clement was frightened that he was actually asleep and couldn’t wake up.

«Well, all right, sleepyhead!» Raymonda suddenly leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. «Sleep till morning, and I’ll come and see you in the afternoon.»

He thought she had scales of skin under the pendants of pearl on her bare forehead. It was probably part of the ornament. It’s hard to see in the dark.

What kind of pendants do jewelers attach to pendants? Sapphires cut in the form of drops or stars, beads, even cameos. Suddenly it occurred to someone to make a crown of dragon scales. What fashions will not be introduced! And the court ladies will support any innovations, even those that would cause them to burn themselves on jewelry made of dragon scales.

What surprised him more than scales was the veil in Raymonda’s hair. It was thin, like a spider’s web, but white. How similar to a bride’s veil!

If she is the one he is waiting for, she is certainly no princess. She is a forest nymph or an elf! His uncle has promised him a sorceress!

Or is it worse and Raymonda has been promised to someone else? It is for a wood elf like her, for instance. Clement’s heart ached, but there was no time to question Raymonda about her marriage. The beauty had vanished. Literally! Where she had stood, a luminous puff of smoke wafted toward the open window.