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Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 15
With the onset of summer, Rene, as planned, left the service in the ordinance company. He again took up the glove trade, but, unlike his father, he perceived it not as a matter of life, but as a step towards something more important. He thought about opening a glove shop separate from the workshop and about joining the guild of merchants, which had great weight in Paris.Rene walked around the city in search of a suitable place for his shop. At first he wanted to buy his old house on the Rue Saint-Denis, but then he abandoned this idea, deciding to find something closer to the quarters where the nobility lived.Once during such a search, passing by some inn, Rene saw Madeleine's carriage. His heart skipped a beat and seemed to stop. He approached the carriage - it was empty. Rene went into the tavern and looked around. The hall was lined with roughly knocked together wooden tables, behind which townspeople, peasants, military men sat on benches. In the opposite wall, a niche was visib
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 16
Gold pressed his lips and sighed heavily. He seemed to be gathering his strength before telling something very important to him.“It happened,” he began, clearing his throat, “at the end of July 1524. The summer was hot and dry, sometimes in one or the other end of the city wooden houses caught fire. I remember walking home after a workshop meeting. Turning down a small street, I suddenly heard screams and smelled smoke. I quickened my pace and soon reached the house, enveloped in the flames of a fire. People were rushing around with buckets, there was noise and bustle. But there was little benefit from this, the house burned so badly that there was no way to put it out. Some daredevils rushed inside the house, but immediately ran out, choking and coughing.Moving to the other side of the street, I looked up and saw with horror that a girl of five years old was standing on a small balcony of a burning house. Fear froze on her face, she did not cry, did not call for help, she simply lo
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 17
That March day, Genevieve gave him a couple of deniers and sent him to the grocer's. François ran out into the street and thumped his boots on the cobblestones. Hearing someone call to him, he turned around and saw Andre, the ten-year-old son of their neighbor, Madame Bugeaud. The boy overtook François, and they walked side by side.“Oh, it would be summer already,” Andre muttered, wrapping himself in a cape, and suddenly, for no reason at all, asked, “they say you will soon have a new dad?”- What-oh? François was surprised.- Well, how. That gentleman who visits your mother is obviously going to marry her, we all think so. A prominent guy, you will not say anything. And what a cloak! Not like my rag.François was silent, trying to comprehend what he had heard. So Genevieve has a boyfriend? He felt a burning jealousy. However, this was to be expected, she had been alone for too long.Andre looked at him in surprise.- You didn't know anything?- Nuu ... how can I tell you ... Tell me
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 18
François went to Montferrand, where Anna de La Tour lived. As we moved east, there were fewer and fewer villages on the way, and on the third evening after leaving Limoges, Francois could not find a single settlement where one could stop for the night. After spending the night in the field and eating the remnants of cheese, which he was provided with in the last village he passed, he continued on his way.By evening, a forest appeared ahead, huge and dark. The road went straight through it. Before reaching the forest, exhausted and hungry, François settled down for the night. For the whole day he did not meet a single village. “What should I do now?” he thought. “The forest, apparently, is rather big, it may take several days to go through it, but there are probably no villages there. What will I eat? And where will I sleep?”With these gloomy thoughts, he imperceptibly fell asleep, and in the morning, hungry and chilled, he cautiously moved towards the forest.He was walking down the
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 19
But it was too late to retreat. The next morning François, as promised, helped papa Étienne straighten the fence and set off.The road was steadily going uphill, and François was rather tired, climbing up the wide path. Here it is, the Auvergne, a wooded highland with short mountain ranges sticking out here and there. Far below, he noticed a village near a river flowing in a narrow valley. Well, he finally reached the goal, somewhere in this alien, inhospitable mountainous country, his sister lives. Inspired by this thought, the boy hurried down.François now walked much more carefully, from settlement to settlement, trying not to catch the twilight on his way. You can hide or run away from robbers, but where can you get away from evil spirits?If the locals refused him lodging for the night, Francois quietly settled in someone's garden. He shuddered at the thought that a werewolf might attack him at any moment. When he managed to persuade the owners to give him shelter, he carefully
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 20
As soon as dawn broke, François pushed Blanca aside, and they set off in the direction of the Dauphine. It was dark in the forest, and they walked carefully, carefully looking around.Very soon both felt that they were hungry. François was alarmed: it was not the first time for him, he would be patient, but what would it be like for his sister not to eat for a day?"Let's look for a clearing," he suggested. - If we're lucky, we can find berries.- Nonsense, - Blanca waved her hand. - The forest is full of sweet roots. Look, this is a cinquefoil, and there is a parsnip. He has pretty tasty tubers.- How do you know all this?“I’m a country girl,” the girl answered innocently. - We all know this. Give me the knife.She sat down in front of a small bush with pale yellow flowers and began to dig it out of the ground with a knife. Her brother stood by and watched her in surprise.Suddenly, a gray carcass flashed through the air, and a huge wolf landed on François's shoulders, instantly kno
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 21
After dinner, François, Gilbert, and Blanca ran to Uncle Lazzi's house. Half of the villagers were already there. The guys squeezed closer to the table, at which sat the owner, Umberto Lazzi, and a stranger strikingly similar to him. He was short, but broad-shouldered and muscular, and over a linen shirt he wore an unusual-looking leather jacket. His swarthy smiling face was overgrown with a beard and was dotted with wrinkles, his eyes glinted slyly from under a cap of disheveled hair. A white scar ran across the right cheek, on which an earring dangling on the earlobe cast a glare.François and Blanca, like everyone else, stared in amazement at the strange stranger. None of them had seen anything like it before. Roberto did not seem to notice the surprised looks, cheerfully and calmly telling his story to those around him. Slowly and with humor, he told how he ran away from home as a boy, how in Genoa he became a cabin boy on a merchant ship bound for Marseille, and how over the year
Eternal Life;Cursed Gift 22
François returned to the city and wandered around the market for a long time. Finally, he found what he was looking for: fire-grass, causing instant irritation and skin burns. Having bought a bunch of grass and some fern powder, he went to the next street, where he bought not a new, but rather decent European-cut caftan, a velvet beret, chausses, boots and a leather purse. Having finished shopping, the young man jumped on his horse and rode back to the Toad's house. Not far from him, François dismounted, tying his horse in the shade of palm trees, and changed his clothes. He looked at himself as best he could and was satisfied: in this caftan he could easily pass for a young rich merchant.François approached the house cautiously and bent over towards the back door. There were no servants present, and he slipped in unhindered.The house was huge. François crept along the corridor, looked into several rooms, but did not meet a soul anywhere. Ahead, the corridor forked. After hesitating