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

"I don't know how you bear it—"
"Neither do I," Hilary murmured, doubling up again under the fresh wave of violent pain, and Callista stood helpless, wondering why Hilary's struggles hadn't yet waked Leonie.
"I made her promise to sleep in one of the insulated rooms last night," Hilary said, picking the unspoken question out of the child's mind.
"Did you get all the copper mined?"
"No; Romilla broke the circle early; Damon had to carry Leonie to her room, she couldn't walk ..."
"She's been working too hard," Callista said, "but Lord Serrais will be upset; he's been badgering us for that copper since midsummer."
"He won't get it at all if we kill Leonie with overwork," Hilary said, "and I'm no good one tenday out of every four."
"Maybe overworking is why you get so sick, Hilary,"
"I'd get sick anyway. But overworking does seem to make it worse," Hilary muttered, "I don't have the strength to fight off the pain anymore."
"I wish I'd hurry and grow up so I could be trained, and help you both," Callista said, but suddenly she was frightened. Would this happen to her too?
"Take your time, Callista, you're only eleven I'm
glad your training is going so well," Hilary murmured, "Leonie says you are going to be really great, better than I am, so much better ... we need Keepers so badly, so badly...."
"Hilary, hush, don't try to talk. Just try to even out your breathing."

"I'll live. I always do. But I'm glad you're doing so
well. I'm so afraid "
"That you won't be able to work as a Keeper anymore?"
"Yes, but I have to, Callista, I have to—"
"No you don't," said the younger girl, perching on the end of Hilary's bed, "Leonie will release you, if it's really too much for you. I heard her tell Damon so."
"Of course she will," Hilary whispered, "but I don't want her to be alone with all the weight of the work again. I love her, Callista...."
"Of course you do, Hilary. We all do. I do, too."
"She's worked so hard, all her life—we can't let her down now! We can't!" Hilary struggled upright, gasping. "The others—there were six others who tried and failed, and there were so many times she tried to train a Keeper only to have her leave and marry—and Callista, she's not young, not strong enough anymore, we may be her last chance, she may not be strong enough to train Keepers after us, we have to succeed—it could be the end of Arilinn, Callista—"
"Lie down, Hilary. Don't upset yourself like this. Just relax, try to get control of your breathing, now." Hilary lay back on the bed, while Callista came and bent over her. Light was beginning to filter through the window of her room. She did not speak as Callista bent over her, but her thoughts were as tormented as her body. There must be Keepers, otherwise darkness and ignorance closed over the Domains. And she could not fail, could not let Leonie down.
Callista ran her small hands over Hilary's body, not touching her; about an inch from the surface of the nightgown. Her face was intent, remote. After a little she said, troubled, "I'm not very good at this yet. But it looks as if the lower centers were involved, and the solar plexus too, already—Hilary, I'd better waken Leonie."
Wordless, Hilary shook her head. "Not yet." The cramping pain had moved all through her body now, so that she found it hard to breathe, and Callista looked down, deeply troubled. She said, "Why does it happen, Hilary? It doesn't happen with the other women—I've monitored them during their cycles—and they—" She stopped, turning her eyes away; there were some things from which a Keeper turned her mind and her words

away as she would have turned her physical eyes from an obscenity, but they both knew what the quick equivocal glance meant: and they are not even virgins....
"I don't know, Callista. I swear I don't," Hilary said, feeling again the terrifying sting of guilt. What forbidden thing can I have done, not knowing, that the channels are not clear? How can I have become contaminated ... what is wrong with me? I have kept my vows, I have touched no one, I have not even thought any forbidden thought, and yet... and yet... another wave of pain struck her, so that she turned over, biting her lip hard, feeling it break and blood run down her chin; she did not want Callista to see, but the child was still in rapport with her from the monitoring, and she gasped with the physical assault of it.
"Callista, I have tried so hard, I don't know what I have done, and I can't let her down, I can't ..." Hilary gasped, but the words were so blurred and incoherent that the young girl heard them only in her mind; Hilary was struggling for breath.
"Hilary, never mind, just lie quiet, try to rest."
"I can't—I can't—I've got to know what I have done wrong."
Callista was only eleven; but she had spent almost a year in the Tower, a year of intense and specialized training; she recognized that Hilary was fast slipping into the delirium of first-stage crisis. She ran out of the room, hurrying up the narrow stairs to the insulated room where Leonie slept. She pounded on the door, knowing that this summons would rouse Leonie at once; no one in Arilinn would venture to disturb Leonie now except for a major emergency.
After a moment the door opened, and Leonie, very pale, her graying hair in two long braids over her shoulders, came to the door. "What is it? Callista, child!" She caught the message before Callista could speak a word.
"Hilary again? Ah, merciful Avarra, I had hoped that this time she would escape it—"
Then her stern gaze flickered down Callista; the robe buttoned askew, the nightgown dragging beneath it, the bare feet.
This is no way for a Keeper to appear before anyone! The harsh reproof of the thought was like a mental slap,

though aloud she only said, and her voice was mild, "Suppose one of the others had seen you like this, child? A Keeper must always present a picture of perfect decorum. Go and make yourself tidy, at once!"
"But Hilary—" Callista opened her mouth to protest, caught Leonie's eyes, dropped her own gray eyes and murmured, "Yes, my mother."
"You need not dress if your robe is properly fastened. When you are perfectly tidy, go and send Damon to Hilary; this is too serious for Romilla alone. And I will come when I can."
Callista wanted to protest—Waste time in dressing myself when Hilary is so sick? She could be dying!—but she knew this was all a part of the discipline which would make her, over the years, into a schooled, inhumanly perfect machine, like Leonie herself. Quickly she brushed her red hair and braided it tightly along her neck, slipped into a fresh robe and low indoor boots of velvet which concealed her bare ankles; then she knocked at the door of the young technician, Damon Ridenow, and gave her message.
"Come with me," Damon said, and Callista followed him down the stairs, into Hilary's room.
A Keeper must always present a picture of perfect decorum—even so, Callista was shocked at the effort Hilary made to compose her limbs, her voice, her face. She went and stood beside Hilary, looking compassionately down at her, wishing she could help somehow.
Damon sighed and shook his head as he looked down at Hilary's racked body, her bitten lips. He was a slight, dark man with a sensitive, ascetic face, the compassion in it carefully schooled to impassivity in a Keeper's presence. Yet it came through, a touch of faint humanity behind the calm mask.
"Again, chiya! I had hoped the new medicines would help this time. How heavy is the bleeding?"
"I don't know—" Hilary was trying hard to control her voice; Damon frowned a little, and shook his head. He said to Callista, "I don't suppose—no, you cannot touch anyone yet, can you, child? Leonie will be here soon, she will know—"
Leonie, when she came, was as calm, as carefully put

together as if she were facing the Council. "I am here, child," she said, laying the lightest of touches on Hilary's wrist, and the very touch seemed to quiet Hilary somewhat, as if it stablized her ragged breathing. But she whispered, "I'm so sorry, Leonie—I didn't want to—I can't let you down—I can't, I can't—"
"Hush, hush, child. Don't waste your strength," Leonie commanded, and behind the harshness of the words there was tenderness, too. "Callista, did you monitor her?"