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

"Would you betray me, too?" He gestured with the dagger, but so feebly that Kindra was shocked. There was certainly no time to be lost. The best thing was to humor him.
"Go," she said, "I'll reason with him, and if he won't listen, well, he is old enough to take the consequences of his folly." Her mouth twisted as the men went away. "I hope what you have to tell me is worth risking your life for, you lackwitted simpleton!"
But a great and terrifying suspicion was born in her as she knelt on the bloody pallet. "You fool do you know this is likely to be your deathwound? I have small skill at leechcraft; your comrades could do better for you."
"It is sure to be my death unless you help me," said the hoarse, weakening voice. "None of these men is comrade enough that I could trust him ... mestra, help me, I beg you, in the name of the merciful Avarra—I am a woman."
Kindra drew a sharp breath. She had begun to suspect—and it was true, then. "And none of Brydar's men knows—"
"None. I have dwelt among them for half a year, and I do not think any man of them suspects—and I fear women even more. But you, you I felt I might trust—"
"I swear it," Kindra said hastily. "I am oath-bound never to refuse aid to any woman who asks me in the name of the Goddess. But let me help you now, my poor girl, and pray Avarra you have not delayed too long!"
"Even if it was so—" the strange girl whispered—"I would rather die as a woman, than—disgraced and exposed. I have known so much disgrace—"
"Hush! Hush, child!" But she fell back against the
pallet; she had really fainted, this time, at last; and Kindra cut away the leather breeches, looking at the serious cut that sliced through the top of the thigh and into the pubic mound. It had bled heavily, but was not, Kindra thought, fatal. She picked up one of the clean towels the men had left, pressed heavily against the wound; when it slowed to an ooze, she frowned, thinking it should be stitched. She hesitated to do it—she had little skill at such things, and she was sure the man from Brydar's band could do it more tidily and sure-handed; but she knew that was exactly what the young woman had feared, to be handled and exposed by men. Kindra thought: If it could be done before she recovers consciousness, she need not know ... But she had promised the girl, and she would keep her promise. The girl did not stir as she stepped out into the hall.
Brydar came halfway up the stairs. "How goes it?"
"Send young Annelys to me," Kindra said. "Tell her to bring linen thread and a needle; and linen for bandages, and hot water and soap." Annelys had courage and strength; what was more, she was sure that if Kindra asked her to keep a secret, Annelys would do so, instead of gossiping about it.
Brydar said, in a undertone that did not carry a yard past Kindra's ear, "It's a woman—isn't it?"
Kindra demanded, with a frown. "Were you listening?"
"Listening, hell! I've got the brains I was born with, and I was remembering a couple of other little things. Can you think of any other reason a member of my band wouldn't let us get his britches off? Whoever she is, she's got guts enough for two!"
Kindra shook her head in dismay. Then all the girl's suffering was useless, scandal and disgrace there would be in any case. "Brydar, you pledged this would be worth my while. Do you owe me, or not?"
"I owe you," Brydar said.
"Then swear by your sword that you will never open your mouth about this, and I am paid. Fair enough?"
Brydar grinned. "I won't cheat you out of your pay for that," he said. "You think I want it to get round these hills that Brydar of Fen Hills can't tell the men
from the ladies? Young Marco rode with my band for half a year and proved himself the man. If his foster-sister or kinswoman or cousin or what you will chooses to nurse him herself, and take him home with her afterward, what's it to any of my men? Damned if I want my crew thinking some girl killed Scarface right under my nose!" He put his hand to sword-hilt. "Zandru take this hand with the palsy if I say any word about this. I'll send Annelys to you," he promised, and went.
Kindra returned to the girl's side. She was still unconscious; when Annelys came in, Kindra said curtly, "Hold the lamp there; I want to get this stitched before she recovers consciousness. And try not to get squeamish or faint; I want to get it done quick enough so we don't have to hold her down while we do it."
Annelys gulped at the sight of the girl and the gaping wound, which had begun to bleed again. "A woman! Blessed Evanda! Kindra, is she one of your Sisterhood? Did you know?"
"No, to both questions. Here, hold the light—"
"No," said Annelys. "I have done this many times; I have steady hands for this. Once when my brother cut his thigh chopping wood, I sewed it up, and I have helped the midwife, too. You hold the light."
Relieved, Kindra surrendered the needle. Annelys began her work as skillfully as if she were embroidering a cushion; halfway through the business, the girl regained consciousness; she gave a faint cry of fright, but Kindra spoke to her, and she quieted and lay still, her teeth clamped in her lip, clinging to Kindra's hand. Halfway through, she moistened her lip and whispered, "Is she one of you, mestra?"
"No. No more than yourself, child. But she is a friend. And she will not gossip about you, I know it," Kindra said confidently.
When Annelys had finished, she fetched a glass of wine for the woman, and held her head while she drank it. Some color came back into the pale cheeks, and she was breathing more easily. Annelys brought one of her own nightgowns and said, "You will be more comfortable in this, I think. I wish we could carry you to my bed, but I don't think you should be moved yet. Kindra,
help me to lift her." With a pillow and a couple of clean sheets she set about making the woman comfortable on the straw pallet.
The stranger made a faint sound of protest as they began to undress her, but was too weak to protest effectively. Kindra stared in shock as the undertunic came off. She would never have believed that any woman over fourteen could successfully pose as a man among men; yet this woman had done it, and now she saw how. The revealed form was flat, spare, breastless; the shoulders had the hardened musculature of any swordsman. There was more hair on the arms than most women would have tolerated without removing it somehow, with bleach or wax. Annelys stared in amazement, and the woman, seeing that shocked look, hid her face in the pillow. Kindra said sharply, "There is no need to stare. She is emmasca, that is all; haven't you ever seen one before?" The neutering operation was illegal all over Darkover, and dangerous; and in this woman it must have been done before, or shortly after puberty. She was filled with questions, but courtesy forbade any of them.
"But—but—" Annelys whispered. "Was she born so or made so? It is unlawful—who would dare—"
"Made so," the girl said, her face still hidden in the pillow. "Had I been born so, I would have had nothing to fear ... and I chose this so that I might have nothing more to fear!"
She tightened her mouth as they lifted and turned her; Annelys gasped aloud at the shocking scars, like the marks of whips, across the woman's back; but she said nothing, only pulled the merciful concealment of her own nightgown over the frightful revelation of those scars. Gently, she washed the woman's face and hands with soapy water. The ginger-pale hair was dark with sweat, but at the roots Kindra saw something else; the hair was beginning to grow in fire-red there.
Comyn. The telepath caste, red-haired ... this woman was a noblewoman, born to rule in the Domains of Darkover!
In the name of all the Gods, Kindra wondered, who can she be, what has come to her? How came she here in this disguise, even her hair bleached so none can guess
at her lineage? And who has mishandled her so? She must have been beaten like an animal ...
And then, shocked, she heard the words forming in her mind, not knowing how.
Scarface, said the voice in her mind. But now I am avenged. Even if it means my death ...
She was frightened; never had she so clearly perceived; her rudimentary telepath gift had always, before, been a matter of quick intuition, hunch, lucky guess. She whispered aloud, in horror and dismay, "By the Goddess! Child, who are you?"
The pale face contorted in a grimace which Kindra recognized, in dismay, was intended for a smile. "I am— no one," she said. "I had thought myself the daughter of Alaric Lindir. Have you heard the tale?"
Alaric Lindir. The Lindir family were a proud and wealthy family, distantly akin to the Aillard family of the Comyn. Too highly born, in fact, for Kindra to claim acquaintance with any of that kin; they were of the ancient blood of the Hastur-kin.
"Yes, they are a proud people," whispered the woman. "My mother's name was Kyria, and she was a younger sister to Dom Lewis Ardais—not the Ardais Lord, but his younger brother. But still, she was highborn enough that when she proved to be with child by one of the Hastur lords of Thendara, she was hurried away and married in haste to Alaric Lindir. And my father—he that I had always believed my father—he was proud of his red-haired daughter; all during my childhood I heard how proud he was of me, for I would marry into Comyn, or go to one of the Towers and become a great and powerful sorceress or Keeper. And then—then came Scarface and his crew, and they sacked the castle, and carried away some of the women, just as an afterthought, and by the time Scarface discovered who he had as his latest captive—well, the damage was done, but still he sent to my father for ransom. And my father, that selfsame Dom Alaric who had not enough proud words for his red-haired beauty who should further his ambition by a proud marriage into the Comyn, my father—" She choked, then spat the words out. "He sent word that if Scarface could guarantee me—
untouched—then he would ransom me at a great price; but if not, then he would pay nothing. For if I was—was spoilt, ravaged—then I was no use to him, and Scarface might hang me or give me to one of his men, as he saw fit."
"Holy Bearer of Burdens!" Annelys whispered. "And this man had reared you as his own child?"
"Yes—and I had thought he loved me," Camilla said, her face twisting. Kindra closed her eyes in horror, seeing all too clearly the man who had welcomed his wife's bastard—but only while she could further his ambition!
Annelys' eyes were filled with tears. "How dreadful! Oh, how could any man—"
"I have come to believe any man would do so," Camilla said, "for Scarface was so angry at my father's refusal that he gave me to one of his men to be a plaything, and you can see how he used me. That one I killed while he lay sleeping one night, when at last he had come to believe me beaten into submission—and so made my escape, and back to my mother, and she welcomed me with tears and with pity, but I could see in her mind that her greatest fear, now, was that I should shame her by bearing the child of Scarface's bastard; she feared that my father would say to her, like mother, like daughter, and my disgrace would revive the old story of her own. And I could not forgive my mother—that she should continue to love and to live with that man who had rejected me and given me over to such a fate. And so I made my way to a leronis, who took pity on me—or perhaps she, too, wanted only to be certain I would not disgrace my Comyn blood by becoming a whore or a bandit's drab—and she made me emmasca, as you see. And I took service with Brydar's men, and so I won my revenge—"
Annelys was weeping; but the girl lay with a face like stone. Her very calm was more terrible than hysteria; she had gone beyond tears, into a place where grief and satisfaction were all one, and that one wore the face of death.
Kindra said softly, "You are safe now; none will harm you. But you must not talk any more; you are
weary, and weakened with loss of blood. Come, drink the rest of this wine and sleep, my girl." She supported the girl's head while she finished the wine, filled with horror. And yet, through the horror, was admiration. Broken, beaten, ravaged, and then rejected, this girl had won free of her captors by killing one of them; and then she had survived the further rejection of her family, to plot her revenge, and to carry it out, as a noble might do.
And the proud Comyn rejected this woman? She has the courage of any two of their menfolk! It is this kind of pride and folly that will one day bring the reign of the Comyn crashing down into ruin! And she shuddered with a strange premonitory fear, seeing with her wakening telepathic gift a flashing picture of flames over the Hellers, strange sky-ships, alien men walking the streets of Thendara clad in black leather ...