"Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Free Amazons 02 - Amazon Fragment" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

Amazon Fragment
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Years afterward, neither Camilla nor Rafaella could ever remember exactly what had triggered their original quarнrel. Somewhere there must have been some initial reнmark, some small individual episode, which set off a series of silly, pointless squabbles, of rude remarks and covert insults, of endless bickering; but neither of them could ever trace it back and find the spark which had set all this tinder ablaze.
But it seemed to Rafaella, this winter, that Camilla had for no known reason taken a bitter dislike to her, and went out of her way to pick quarrels over everyнthing. She remembered one bitter dispute over a barn-broom which they were both using in the stable one day, as a result of which Camilla hadЧaccidentally, she insistedЧshoved her into the manure pile. And another, in the kitchen, where she had stumbled and scattered a pile of trash which Camilla had laboriously swept up, and because Camilla had loudly accused her of doing it on purpose, she did not, (as normally, she insisted, she would have been glad to do) help the other woman sweep it up again.
But CamillaЧit seemed to RafaellaЧwas forever making remarks about women who flaunted their lovers, and when Rafaella, one night in the music room, had laughingly admitted to one or two of the younger women that she had reason to believe she might be pregnant, Camilla had muttered "Harlot!" and gotten up to leave the room. Rafaella had flared, "None of your lovers would ever give you so much," and Camilla had slapped her face.
That episode had gotten them both called up in House meeting before the Guild-mothers, who, without lis-
tening to the remarks they had exchangedЧMother Lauria said sharply that she had heard all the insults young women could put on one another and was not interestedЧadmonished them to try and live at peace. Afterward the Guild-mothers, aware of their hostility, tried to assign them separate tasks; Camilla was working in the city, and Rafaella living in the house and working in the Guild House garden, so that they really did not come in contact very often. Not nearly often enough to quarrel as often as they did. It soon seemed that they could not be in the same room without quarreling, and they made a point of seating themselves at opposite ends of the room in dining room and House meeting.
The final episode was triggered one night when they happened to be at the same time in the third-floor bath, and (by accident, Rafaella always insisted) Rafaella ran without looking into Camilla, knocking her off balance and splashing her with dirty water. Camilla turned on her furiously.
"Now see what you have done, you fat bitch!" Her thick nightgown was clinging wetly to her knees, sopping.
"Bitch yourself," Rafaella retorted, angry because for once it had really been an accident and she had actually opened her mouth to apologize, to hand Camilla the towel in her own hand, when Camilla turned on her.
Camilla did not answer. She picked up a basin at hand, and doused the gallon or so of cold, soapy bathwater over Rafaella's head.
Shocked, spluttering, furious, frantically pushing ice-cold, soapy hair out of her face, blinded, Rafaella picked up a pitcher and flung it at her.
"I'll break your head, you emmasca cat-hag!"
The pitcher, which was made of stoneware and heavy, struck Camilla on the shoulder, knocking her almost to the floor. She stumbled and went down; a woman behind her caught her and helped her to her feet. Camilla whirled; her clothes were spread out on a stool, and she caught up her dagger from her belt.
"You filthy whore, how dare you!" She rushed at Raнfaella, and Rafaella gripped at the knife in her boots, in sheer reflexЧself-defense, she justified herself later. And
then they were fighting in deadly earnest, slipping on the wet stone floor of the bath, Camilla hampered by her long nightgown. It took four women to drag them apart, and both were bleeding from long, painful cuts; Kindra, roused from sleep to deal with the matter, looked grave.
"You two have been keeping the house in an uproar for half a season," she accused. "This cannot go on. While it was only harsh words, we held our peace, but thisЧ" she looked, shocked, at the slash along Rafaella's bare arm, the two cuts on Camilla's face, "this is serious, this is oath-breaking. You are sworn, like all of us, to live at peace, as kin and sisters."
Camilla hung her head. In the slashed, dripping nightнgown, she looked ludicrous. Rafaella saw Kindra's eyes on hers and wanted to cry.
Kindra said quietly, "Daughters, I ask you now to kiss one another, beg each other's pardon, and swear to live at peace as sisters should. Will you now obey me, and we need carry this no further."
Rafaella looked at Camilla with cold, fastidious disнtasteЧas if, Camilla said later, I was something with a hundred legs that you had found in your porridge. "I'd rather kiss a cralmac!"
"Rafaella, my child, this is not worthy of you," Kindra said.
Camilla said, in shaking rage, "Let her keep away from me, and I will promise to keep my hands off her dirty throat. I will promise no more!"
Kindra stared from one to the other of them, angry and appalled. "We cannot have this here! You know that!"
"Then send me away," Camilla flared, "where I need not listen night and day to her taunting! There are other Guild Houses in the Domains!"
Rafaella's eyes rested on Camilla; she felt her lip curl as she said, "Perhaps that would settle it best. I am tryнing to stay as far away from her as I can, but it seems the House is not big enough for us both. If she chooses to leave here, that would solve everyone's problem."
Kindra shook her head. "You are my oath-daughters, both of you; that would be no solution. Children," she pleaded, "will you not, for my sake, sit down together
and talk this through?" She held out a hand to each of them; Camilla lowered her eyes and pretended not to see, and Kindra said in despair, "Will you leave me no choice but to bring this before the judges?"
"Oh, Kindra," Rafaella said, and her eyes filled with tears, "I have tried, truly I have, but I can't live with her! One of us must go, even ifЧ" she heard her voice catch in a sob, "even if it must be me!"
Would Kindra actually send her away? She thought, wretchedly, Does she care more for that emmasca than for me! A year ago she would have flung herself into Kindra's arms and cried, promising to do everything Kindra asked. She moved toward Kindra, on the verge of breaking down, longing for Kindra to take her into her arms, but Kindra frowned and drew back. She said, and her voice was hard, "It is not to me, Rafaella, but to Camilla, that you must make your apology."
"To her?" Rafaella was cold and incredulous. "Never!" She wanted to cry out, Kindra, don't you love me anymore at all? But she swallowed the words back, knowing she had no right to speak them.
Kindra took Camilla's long fingers in hers. She said "Kima, my child, you are the elder, and you have been one of us longer. She is a child. Will you yield? I should not ask it. Yet I do."
Camilla's voice was husky; but her eyes were tearless and her face like stone. "It is unfair for you to ask it, Kindra. You know I would do anything for you save this, but I have done nothing to merit her persecutionЧ"
"Nothing?" Rafaella cried, "YouЧ"
"Rafi!" Kindra's voice was not loud; but it cut Rafaнella off in mid-syllable.
Camilla went on, steadily, "If she will apologize, I will accept her apology, and carry this no further, but I will not crawl to her and beg forgiveness for allowing her to ill-use me!"
Kindra sighed. She said, "You have left me no choice," and summoned the women who had disarmed them. "Keep them in separate rooms while I send for the judges."
Left alone, frightened as the night crawled on, Rafaнella heard the words of her oath echoing in her mind.
And if I prove false to my oath, I shall submit myself to the Guild-mothers for such discipline as they see fit, and if I fail, let them slay me like an animal and consign my body unburied to corruption and my soul to the mercy of the Goddess....
Oath-breaking. She had once heard her father say that the most vicious crime was to turn drawn steel against kinfolk; she had been brought up on the ballad of the outlaw berserker who had slain his brethren and been exiled by his last remaining sister ... and she had drawn her dagger on Camilla. True, Camilla had first come at her with a dagger. But perhaps the woman had only been trying to frighten her ... it need not have come to a fight. The slash on her arm smarted and throbbed; no one had troubled to bandage it. By oath, Camilla is my sister ... mother and sister and daughter to every other woman oath bound to the Guild. And I drew my dagger on a kinswoman, the more so because she, too, is Kindra's oath-daughter.
But Kindra could not help her now.
She does not love me at all! She would not pledge herself to me ... she loves Camilla better than me!
At last one of the women came and summoned them, and Rafaella saw the pale angry face of her fellow culнprit. They stood side by side before the four Guild-mothнers, their slashed garments and small wounds telling the tale, and Kindra added that they had refused, before witnesses, to compromise or amend their quarrel. Mother Callista, the oldest of the Guild-mothers, and one of the judges of the Guild, said at last. "This is oath-breaking," and Rafaella trembled.
What will they do to me? she wondered.
Mother Lauria said, "You, Camilla n'ha Kyria, Rafaнella n'ha Doria, stand before me. This is no game; I ask you two for the last time if you are willing to join hands, exchange a kiss as sisters, and pledge to amend your quarrel before it is too late. You will have no other chance."
Camilla said, her hands clenched into hard fists, "I would rather you killed me, than apologize without fault and grovel before her!"
Callista said, "Rafaella, will you apologize?"
Rafaella had the craven thought, If I do, then perhaps they will only punish her ... if I break down now and apologize, they will think I do so because I am afraid of punishment, and they will know I am more cowardly, that she is braver and more defiant than I am! Show myself cowardly before her? Never!
She said, spitting the words out, "Beat me, then, or kill me if you will! Is this Amazon justice?"
"Kill you?" Mother Callista laughed, not amused. "We are not Guardsmen, to challenge your defiance, and reward you for your stubbornness because you are able to disguise it as heroism. You stand here, then, ready to submit yourselves to punishment? Or will you apologize and pledge to live at peace?"