"Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Darkover 00 - Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

Startled at the courteous phrase, but still wary, Kindra said, "And to you, young sir."
"May I offer you a tankard of wine?"
"I have had enough to drink," Kindra said, "but I thank you for the kind offer." Something faintly out of key, almost effeminate, in the youth's bearing, alerted her; his proposition, then, would not be the usual thing.

Most people knew that Free Amazons took lovers if and when they chose, and all too many men interpreted that to mean that any Amazon could be had, at any time. Kindra was an expert at turning covert advances aside without ever letting it come to question or refusal; with ruder approaches, she managed with scant courtesy. But that wasn't what this youngster wanted; she knew when a man was looking at her with desire, whether he put it into words or not, and although there was certainly interest in this young man's face, it wasn't sexual interest! What did he want with her, then?
"May I—may I sit here and talk to you for a moment, honorable dame?"
Rudeness she could have managed. This excessive courtesy was a puzzle. Were they simply making game of a woman-hater, wagering he would not have the courage to talk to her? She said neutrally, "This is a public room; the chairs are not mine. Sit where you like."
Ill at ease, the boy took a seat. He was young indeed. He was still beardless, but his hands were callused and hard, and there was a long-healed scar on one cheek; he was not as young as she thought.
"You are a Free Amazon, mestra!" He used the common, and rather offensive, term; but she did not hold it against him. Many men knew no other name.
"I am," she said, "but we would rather say: I am of the oath-bound—" The word she used was Comhi-Letzis— "A Renunciate of the Sisterhood of Freed Women."
"May I ask—without giving offense—why the name Renunciate, mestra!"
Actually, Kindra welcomed a chance to explain. "Because sir, in return for our freedom as women of the Guild, we swear an oath renouncing those privileges that we might have by choosing to belong to some man. If we renounce the disabilities of being property and chattel, we must renounce, also, whatever benefits there may be; so that no man can accuse us of trying to have the best of both choices."
He said gravely, "That seems to me an honorable choice. I have never yet met a—-a—a Renunciate. Tell me, mestra—" His voice suddenly cracked high. "I sup-

pose you know the slanders that are spoken of you—tell me, how does any woman have the courage to join the Guild, knowing what will be said of her?"
"I suppose," Kindra said quietly, "for some women, a time comes when they think that there are worse things than being the subject of public slanders. It was so with me."
He thought that over for a moment, frowning. "I have never seen a Free—er—a Renunciate traveling alone before. Do you not usually travel in pairs, honorable dame?"
"True. But need knows no mistress," Kindra said, and explained that her companion had fallen sick in Thendara.
"And you came so far to bear a message? Is she your bredhis!" the boy asked, using the polite word for a woman's freemate or female lover; and because it was the polite word he used, not the gutter one, Kindra did not take offense. "No, only a comrade."
"I—I would not have dared speak if there had been two of you—"
Kindra laughed. "Why not? Even in twos or threes, we are not dogs to bite strangers."
The boy stared at his boots. "I have cause to fear— women—" he said, almost inaudibly. "But you seemed kind. And I suppose, mestra, that whenever you come into these hills, where life is so hard for women, you are always seeking out wives and daughters who are discontented at home, to recruit them for your Guild?"
Would that we might! Kindra thought, with all the old bitterness; but she shook her head. "Our charter forbids it," she said. "It is the law that a women must seek us out herself, and formally petition to be allowed to join us. I am not even allowed to tell women of the advantages of the Guild, when they ask. I may only tell them of the things they must renounce, by oath." She tightened her lips and added, "If we were to do as you say, to seek out discontented wives and daughters and lure them away to the Guild, the men would not let any Guild House stand in the Domains, but would burn our houses about our ears." It was the old injustice; the women of Darkover had won this concession, the charter

of the Guild, but so hedged about with restrictions that many women never saw or spoke with a Guild-sister.
"I suppose," she said, "that they have found out that we are not whores, so they insist that we are all lovers of women, intent on stealing out their wives and daughters. We must be, it seems, one evil thing or the other."
"Are there no lovers of women among you, then?"
Kindra shrugged. "Certainly," she said. "You must know that there are some women who would rather die than marry; and even with all the restrictions and renunciations of the oath, it seems a preferable alternative. But I assure you we are not all so. We are free women— free to be thus or otherwise, at our own will." After a moment's thought she added carefully, "And if you have a sister you may tell her so from me."
The young man started, and Kindra bit her lip; again she had let her guard down, picking up hunches so clearly formed that sometimes her companions .accused her of having a little of the telepathic gift of the higher castes; laran. Kindra, who was, as far as she knew, all commoner and without either noble blood or telepathic gift, usually kept herself barricaded; but she had picked up a random thought, a bitter thought from somewhere, My sister would not believe ... a thought quickly vanished, so quickly that Kindra wondered if she had imagined the whole thing.
The young face across the table twisted into bitter lines.
"There is none, now, I may call my sister."
"I am sorry," Kindra said, puzzled. "To be alone, that is a sorrowful thing. May I ask your name?"
The boy hesitated again, and Kindra knew, with that odd intuition, that the real name had almost escaped the taut lips; but he bit it back.
"Brydar's men call me Marco. Don't ask my lineage; there is none who will claim kin to me now—thanks to those foul bandits under Scarface." He twisted his mouth and spat. "Why do you think I am in this company? For the few coppers these village folk can pay? No, mestra. I too am oath-bound. To revenge."
Kindra left the common room early, but she could not sleep for a long time. Something in the young man's

voice, his words, had plucked a resonating string in her own mind and memory. Why had he questioned her so insistently? Had he a sister or kinswoman, perhaps, who had spoken of becoming a Renunciate? Or was he, an obvious effeminate, jealous of her because she could escape the role ordained by society for her sex and he could not? Did he fantasy, perhaps, some such escape from the demands made upon men? Surely not; there were simpler lives for men than that of a hired sword! And men had a choice of what lives they would live— more choice, anyhow, than most women. Kindra had chosen to become a Renunciate, making herself an out-caste among most people in the Domains. Even the innkeeper only tolerated her, because she was a regular customer and paid well, but he would have equally tolerated a prostitute or a traveling juggler, and would have had fewer prejudices against either.
Was the youth, she wondered, one of the rumored spies sent out by cortes, the governing body in Thendara, to trap Renunciates who broke the terms of their charter by proselytizing and attempting to recruit women into the Guild? If so, at least she had resisted the temptation. She had not even said, though tempted, that if Janella were a Renunciate she would have felt competent to run the inn by herself, with the help of her daughters.
A few times, in the history of the Guild, men had even tried to infiltrate them in disguise. Unmasked, they had met with summary justice, but it had happened and might happen again. At that, she thought, he might be convincing enough in women's clothes; but not with the scar on his face, or those callused hands. Then she laughed in the dark, feeling the calluses on her own fingers. Well, if he was fool enough to try it, so much the worse for him. Laughing, she fell asleep.
Hours later she woke to the sound of hoofbeats, the clash of steel, yells and cries outside. Somewhere women were shrieking. Kindra flung on her outer clothes and ran downstairs. Brydar was standing in the courtyard, bellowing orders. Over the wall of the courtyard she could see a sky reddened with flames. Scarf ace and his bandit crew were loose in the town, it seemed.

"Go, Renwal," Brydar ordered. "Slip behind their rear-guard and set their horses loose, stampede them, so they must stand to fight, not strike and flee again! And since all the good horses are stabled here, one of you must stay and guard them lest they strike here for ours ... the rest of you come with me, and have your swords at the ready—"
Janella was huddled beneath the overhanging roof of an outbuilding, her daughters and serving women like roosting hens around her. "Will you leave us all here unguarded, when we have housed you all for seven days and never a penny in pay? Scarface and his men are sure to strike here for the horses, and we are unprotected, at their mercy—"
Brydar gestured to the boy Marco. uYou. Stay and guard horses and women—"
The boy snarled, "No! I joined your crew on the pledge that I should face Scarface, steel in hand! It is an affair of honor—do you think I need your dirty coppers?"
Beyond the wall all was shrieking confusion. "I have no time to bandy words," Brydar said quickly. "Kindra—this is no quarrel of yours, but you know me a man of my word; stay here and guard the horses and these women, and I will make it worth your while!"
"At the mercy of a woman? A woman to guard us? Why not set a mouse to guard a lion!" Janella's shrewish cry cut him off. The boy Marco urged, eyes blazing, "Whatever I have been promised for this foray is yours, mestra, if you free me to meet my sworn foe!"
"Go;, I'll look after them," Kindra said. It was unlikely Scarface would get this far, but it was really no affair of hers; normally she fought beside the men, and would have been angry at being left in a post of safety. But Janella's cry had put her on her mettle. Marco caught up his sword and hurried to the gate, Brydar following him. Kindra watched them go, her mind on her own early battles. Some turn of gesture, of phrase, had alerted her. The boy Marco is noble, she thought. Perhaps even Comyn, some bastard of a great lord, perhaps even a Hastur. I don't know what he's doing with Brydar's men, but he's no ordinary hired sword!

Janella's wailing brought her back to her duty. "Oh! Oh! Horrible," she howled, "Left here with only a woman to look after us ..."