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

"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 cateнnas, you two?"
"Camilla is a Dry Towner, to put her woman in chains!"
Rafaella began to realize what she had never recogнnized before; Camilla was not particularly well liked. Most of the taunts were aimed at her; what few expresнsions 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 eveнning, 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, sobнbing 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, reнleased 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 otherЧany 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, Raнfaella holding her sides with pain.
"My shoulder," Camilla groaned. "I think it's brokenЧ"
"Did I do that? I'm sorry, I didn't meanЧoh, this is ridiculousЧ"
"It isn't hurt, I guess. Just pulled. Did I hurt you?" Camilla asked, "I didn't wantЧ" she helped the other girl to her feet. Rafaella stumbled on the stairs and Caнmilla 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 howЧ-"
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 inЧlet us agree where to sit so we don't have to haul on one another before the rest of themЧ"
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; Raнfaella 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 upнstairs, 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 loverЧ"
"Shut up, damn you," Camilla said, her voice dangerнously 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 afterwardЧ"
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 friendsЧ"
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 kinsнwomen, 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 tomorнrow. 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 popularЧ"
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 someнthing 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 notЧnot necнessary, 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? Shakнing, 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 butнtons on that wrist."