"Bradley,.Marion.Zimmer.-.Darkover.Anthology.11.-.Darkover.v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

"It isn't hurt, I guess. Just pulled. Did I hurt you?" Camilla asked, "I didn't want—" she helped the other girl to her feet. Rafaella stumbled on the stairs and Camilla reached out and steadied her. Surprised, Rafaella thanked her.
"Don't thank me," Camilla grumbled. "If you fall, I am sure to break my knee!"

In the bathroom, Rafaella looked wistfully at one of the tubs.
"I wish I could have a bath. But I don't see how—-"
Camilla began to laugh. "I don't think there is a tub big enough to hold us both."
For some reason that struck them both as funny, too. Camilla said, roughly, "If you will wash my face, I will wash yours."
Weakly, tears of laughter dripping down their faces, they washed one another. As they went down to dinner, Rafaella said shyly, "Before we go in—let us agree where to sit so we don't have to haul on one another before the rest of them—"
Camilla shrugged. "As you will. Where we sat this morning, then?"
When they had found a seat, Camilla said harshly to the serving-woman, "Here, you, we can't chew our meat like dogs. They have not given us back our knives; we must have something to cut our meat with!"
Kindra heard them. She said, "Here," and handed her own knife to Camilla, watching while they cut up the meat into bites. When Camilla had finished, she sheathed it again without comment and walked to her own seat. Rafaella watched her walk away, wondering, Is she gloating over us?
After dinner some of the women gathered in the music room to hear Kindra and Devra sing ballads; Rafaella and Camilla sat on a cushion to listen, but the novelty of the sight was wearing off and no one paid any attention to them. When they separated to go upstairs, Rezi stopped beside Rafaella and nudged her.
"I thought you boasted of never sharing your bed with a woman, Rafi!"
Rafaella felt hot crimson suffusing her face. She knew Kindra was watching them. Camilla snapped "Let her alone!"
"Why, Camilla, gallantry? And after only one night in her bed? Tell me, what is this magic which a woman of her kind can cast on you, so that already you guard her like a lover—"
"Shut up, damn you," Camilla said, her voice dangerously quiet. "I will not always be chained."

"So now the sworn foes are bredhin'y?" someone else jeered. "Like bride and groom, strangers before, and afterward—"
Camilla said in an undertone "Let's get out of here. We don't have to stay here and listen to that."
They got out of the room hurriedly, to a chorus of jeers, catcalls, and ribald jokes. On the stairs, looking at the tears in Rafaella's eyes, Camilla said quietly, "I am sorry about that, Rafaella. I would not willingly have exposed you to that kind of joke. I know they do not like me, but I had thought they were your friends—"
Rafaella swallowed hard. She said, "I thought so, too."
"But they take it out on me because I have brought this on you," Camilla said bitterly, and was silent. "I am older than you, and I first drew my dagger. You should have told Kindra that. Why did you not?"
Rafaella bent her head. She mumbled, "I don't know."
She had thought of it. And then she thought, If they send me away, even in disgrace, I have kinsmen and kinswomen, I will not be wholly alone. But Camilla is emmasca and I once heard Kindra say that her kin had cast her off. She has nowhere else to go.
She said instead, "I must have clean clothes for tomorrow. Will you come to my room while I fetch them?"
"Of course. Though I hope your roommates are not there ..." Camilla said, stifled. "I am afraid of them ... they all dislike me, and you are so popular—"
Rafaella said, really shocked, "Why, everyone in the house likes you!"
"No," said Camilla, bitterly, "they are carefully polite to me because I am emmasca, mutilata ... no one truly likes me save Kindra, and now she will hate me, too, because I have brought trouble and disgrace upon you, her pet and darling...."
"Kindra does not love me at all," Rafaella said, and began to cry. Camilla looked at her in dismay. "She took your part against me, Camilla ... and I thought she loved me ..." and all the old hurt surged over her again. Trying to keep back her sobs, she went to her chest and took out a fresh tunic and under-tunic, clean breeches

and stockings. She said "I do not want to sleep in my
clothes again "
"You need not," Camilla said, and then, bitterness breaking through, "unless you are afraid to undress in my presence, knowing I am a lover of women...."
"Don't be silly," Rafaella said. "That never occurred to me; do you think I even listened to their rude jokes?" Then she realized, suddenly, that Camilla was not joking. "But you are serious! Truly, I never thought it!"
"If you did not, it is sure you are the only one who did not," Camilla said. Rafaella stopped and stood very still, looking at the taut face, the thin mouth. It seemed that she was seeing Camilla for the first time, and something that had been no more than a word, an insult, suddenly became real to her. She thought; perhaps she was even Kindra's lover, perhaps it was for her sake that Kindra would not pledge to me ... but she was afraid and ashamed to say the words. Finally she said, feeling the words awkward on her lips, "That was not—not necessary, Camilla. I do not care what they say."
What can I say to her? I loved Kindra and I never really understood, and now I do not know what to say to her. I feel like a fool.
And Kindra loved me, too. But if she loved me as she said, why did she drive me into the arms of a man? Shaking, suddenly aware of a thousand things beyond her knowledge, feeling suddenly very young and childlike, she turned her eyes away from Camilla. She said "Will you unfasten my cuffs, please? I cannot reach the buttons on that wrist."
They helped each other undress; but although Camilla did not remove her under-tunic, as she turned to get out of her trousers, Rafaella saw what she had not seen that morning when the other woman dressed, the terrible scars all along Camilla's shoulders and back. She drew a long breath of consternation.
This must be why she never bathes in the common room, why she always sleeps alone. How came she by those dreadful scars?
Camilla said, very low, "Now you have seen. Now you can spread the tale of my—my degradation, of how I am doubly mutilated... "

Rafaella turned away. She said, "Hell, no. I have troubles enough of my own to worry about."
Camilla drew a long breath. "I had thought... Kindra
would have spoken to you of this. It is told from here
to Dalereuth, I suppose, in the Guild Houses; how I had
to be stripped naked at my oath-taking because I had
nothing like to a woman's form, and—and they would
not believe me a woman "
Rafaella said "You wrong Kindra if you think she would spread such a tale. Nor has any woman who saw you stripped spoken of it to me. But how came you so scarred, Camilla?"
"I—I would rather not speak of it," Camilla said. "I was very young, but I do not like to remember it ... perhaps some day I will tell you. But I—I cannot talk about it."