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

Camilla's voice was icy. "Nothing. You need not remind me what a fool I am."

For a long time neither of them moved. The fire burned low and the room was very dark. Rafaella saw out of the corner of her eyes that Camilla raised her hand to her face as if she was wiping away tears, but thought, Her crying? That emmasca? I don't think she's human enough to know how to cry! And indeed, Camilla made no sound or movement.
Rafaella felt weary, incapable of coherent thought. She had never been so tired in her life. How would she stand this? How long would it last? Since the Guild-mother said they would eat together and work together and sleep together, she wondered if it would be many days. How could she possibly endure it, to have her enemy always at her elbow? She shuddered, and saw Camilla turn to stare angrily at her.
She wished she was safely in her own room, her own bed. But how could she go to bed with Camilla chained to her wrist? This was worse than a beating! She would not make the first move, nor ask that they go upstairs.
Although, soon or late, I must go up to the bathroom— sooner, rather than later, since I have been pregnant ... well, I will not ask her.
And she felt that she had won a kind of victory when it was Camilla who finally muttered, "I suppose we cannot sit here all night. Shall we go upstairs, then?"
"I don't mind," Rafaella said ungraciously, but it was hard to keep pace with Camilla's long steps, and Rafaella stumbled and fell on the stairs, dragging Camilla down; Camilla swore.
"Will you break my shins, too, damn you?"
"Do you think I break my own leg to spite you, bitch?"
"How do I know what you are likely to do?"
Rafaella lapsed into furious silence. Even years later she remembered the angry humiliation of having to relieve herself with the other woman at her elbow, and the struggle she had not to cry. I won't give her the satisfaction! Camilla herself behaved with complete, calm aloofness, as if she were completely alone. Rafaella wondered how she could accept it so calmly.
(Years later Camilla said to her, "I wanted to scream, to cry for hours, to slap you. But you were so arrogant,

so aloof, as if you didn't know I was there. I felt I couldn't behave worse than you did, I had to pretend to be calm ... then, too, I had had more practice than you in enduring humiliations. You did not know, then, how much I had endured in the way of torment, that I could endure this, too....")
Rafaella said coldly, "Well, are we to sleep on the floor in the hallway here?"
"Where they can all jeer at us in the morning? Not likely!"
Rafaella said reluctantly, "There is room in my bed."
"You would like to wake all your friends, then, to jeer at me?"
Rafaella realized that the three other women who slept in her room knew nothing of what had happened. "Would you rather wake your friends?"
"What friends?" Camilla asked, "I sleep alone—which I am sure you have never done in your life—and at least in my bed we will not be seen!"
Discouraged, Rafaella muttered assent. In Camilla's room she had to struggle one-handed to get off her boots. Camilla was already undressed, in the slashed, still-damp nightgown she had been wearing. Rafaella decided not to take off anything else.
Rafaella slept badly, in her clothes, and on an unaccustomed side. Every time she stirred, the handcuffs jerked her awake again. When she woke, she felt abruptly the surging, uneasy nausea which she had felt only a few times before, but which the Guild-mothers had told her some women suffered in early pregnancy; she sat up, sick and retching, and Camilla grumbled, waking abruptly, "Lie down! What in the devil—"
"I'm sick," Rafaella mumbled miserably, and hurried off down the hall, Camilla angrily stumbling behind. She knelt over the basin, retching, sunk in hopeless misery. Devra, there early for kitchen-duty, came to wipe her face with a cold cloth.
"Poor Rafi, I hoped you would escape this—" she broke off, staring in angry shock at Camilla.
"What—"
Rafaella was too sick and wretched to explain. Camilla said briefly, "We fought. This is how they punished us."

Devra stared in dismay. "But Rafi, this is terrible, when you are sick—does Kindra know? Can she do this to you now?"
Rafaella could not answer she could only think, I brought it on myself. Camilla was standing there, her face turned away in angry disgust. Stumbling to the room for her boots, Rafaella found that she was crying helplessly.
"Oh, shut up," Camilla shouted. "Is that all you can think to do, cry all the time?"
"I—I can't help it—"
"It's bad enough to be kept awake all night with you jerking around, and wake up with you throwing up all over everything, do I have to listen to you bawling all day, too? Shut up or I'll slap you soft-headed!"
"Just you try it!"
Camilla raised her hand for a blow, but discovered that the force of the slap threw her off balance. They fell together in a tangle on the bed. Camilla, swearing, hauled herself upright.
"Where are you going now?" Rafaella demanded.
"To wash myself, dirty pig, and dress, or don't you wash? And am I to go to breakfast in my dirty nightgear?"
Rafaella said shakily, "I'm not hungry." She felt she could not face the room full of women.
But Camilla said coldly, "I am. I'm not pregnant," and Rafaella had no choice but to trail along awkwardly to the bath where Camilla awkwardly washed herself with one hand. She turned her face stubbornly away while Camilla dressed. The room was full of women who stared or giggled or whispered to one another. Rafaella supposed every woman in the Guild House knew the story by now. In the dining room they had to argue again about where they would sit; finally they balanced awkwardly on the end of the bench. Rafaella could not eat, though she drank a little hot milk. Kindra, at a nearby table, turned and looked at them, but, though it seemed to Rafaella that her glance was sympathetic, she did not speak.
"Ah," someone jeered, "so you have wedded di catenas, you two?"

"Camilla is a Dry Towner, to put her woman in chains!"
Rafaella began to realize what she had never recognized before; Camilla was not particularly well liked. Most of the taunts were aimed at her; what few expressions of sympathy were spoken, came to Rafaella. But most of the women seemed to avoid them, embarrassed.
It was a miserable day, punctuated with insults and occasional slaps, jerking at the cuffs that bound them, hobbling awkwardly around the house to their assigned tasks. After a time they began to be able to walk without pulling one another off balance, but they still argued angrily over almost every step and when, toward evening, Rafaella began to cry with exhaustion, Camilla slapped her again, and Rafaella turned and grabbed at her throat. They went down together, fighting, clawing, gripping at any part of each other they could reach, sobbing with rage and humiliation ... they could not, with their hands chained together, even get a good grip on one another's hair!
Abruptly, Rafaella began to laugh. She lay back, released Camilla, and lay laughing helplessly on the rug.
"What's so damned funny?"
"You are," Rafaella gurgled, "and I am. We are. Can't you see how idiotic we are? Here we are fighting this way and we can't even get at each other—any more than we can get away from each other!"
Camilla began slowly to chuckle. She said, "And I can't even run away without taking you along." They laughed together till the tears ran down their faces, Rafaella holding her sides with pain.
"My shoulder," Camilla groaned. "I think it's broken—"
"Did I do that? I'm sorry, I didn't mean—oh, this is ridiculous—"