This must be why she never bathes in the common room, why she always sleeps alone. How came she by those dreadful scars?
Camilla said, very low, “Now you have seen. Now you can spread the tale of my—my degradation, of how I am doubly mutilated . . . .”
Rafaella turned away. She said, “Hell, no. I have troubles enough of my own to worry about.”
Camilla drew a long breath. “I had thought . . . Kindra would have spoken to you of this. It is told from here to Dalereuth, I suppose, in the Guild Houses; how I had to be stripped naked at my oath-taking because I had nothing like to a woman’s form, and—and they would not believe me a woman . . . .”
Rafaella said “You wrong Kindra if you think she would spread such a tale. Nor has any woman who saw you stripped spoken of it to me. But how came you to be so scarred, Camilla?”
“I—I would rather not speak of it,” Camilla said. “I was very young, but I do not like to remember it . . . perhaps someday I will tell you. But I—I cannot talk about—it.”
“As you like,” Rafaella was quiet as they climbed into bed and shifted about for a comfortable place.
Rafaella woke suddenly, hearing her companion scream aloud, moan, start upright, wildly flailing her hands.
“Don’t. It’s all right, Camilla—it is only me, there is no one to harm you . . . .”
Camilla started and shivered, staring at her in the darkness.
“Oh—Rafi—I am sorry I woke you—”
“I am only sorry you cannot sleep without nightmares.”
Camilla said after a long minute, “I was afraid. I—there was a time when I was tied—like an animal—and beaten like an animal, too. Mercifully, I have forgotten much, but sometimes I still have nightmares . . . .”
“Why, this must be worse for you than for me, then,” Rafaella said, compassionately. Tied like an animal . . . beaten like an animal . . . what can have come to her?
“Camilla,” she said at last, “I am sorry. Our quarrel was my fault; I splashed you with dirty water, and I should have apologized and never let it come to this. Tomorrow I will go to Kindra and tell her, and ask that I alone should be punished. You can be freed, then, and need not have nightmares of being tied up.”
Camilla bent her head. She said, “You make me ashamed. I knew you would apologize, and I didn’t want that, because that would mean you were better than I. I think if you had apologized I would have pretended not to hear, so I need not acknowledge it.”
“Then we are both to blame,” Rafaella said, hesitating, “Will you—will you exchange forgiveness with me Camilla?”
“Willingly—oath-sister.” Camilla used the ritual phrase, Comhi-Letzii.
Rafaella leaned over and lightly kissed her on the lips; wondering, touched Camilla’s face with her fingertips. No one in the Guild House had ever seen Camilla cry. Even when she had been brought in from the battle in the hills with a great wound in her leg, and it had to be cleansed and cauterized with acid, she did not cry out or weep!
Camilla said, “I always wanted to be your friend. You were Kindra’s kinswoman, and for that alone I would have loved you. And yet I could not refrain from making a quarrel with you and bringing this upon you . . . .” her voice broke. “And because you are beautiful and everyone loves you, and because you are pregnant.”
“But you are the best fighter in the house, everyone admires your courage and your strength.”
“I am a freak,” Camilla said, her voice shaking, “An emmasca, not a woman at all.”
“But Camilla, Camilla—” Rafaella protested, dismayed, putting her arms around the older woman; it had never occurred to her that Camilla, who had, after all, chosen to undergo the neutering operation, could possibly feel like this. She was not to know for many years why Camilla had had this choice forced upon her, but she sensed tragedy, and it made her gentle.
“I thought you despised my womanhood; you taunted me for being pregnant—”
“Taunted you? If I did, it was only out of envy—” Camilla said, choking.
Rafaella said incredulously, “Envy? Of this insane—insane trouble I have gotten myself into? And I have been hating myself for being such a fool, vulnerable . . . .”
“Envy because you are to have a child,” Camilla said, “and I never shall, now . . . nor, I suppose, really want to, though sometimes it seems to me hard . . . nor could I ever, I suppose, make myself vulnerable in such a way. Is it worth it, Rafaella? Is it really such a delight to you, what you do with men, enough to make up for all the risks?”
“I suppose you would not think it so,” Rafaella said, trying not to remember that her reasons had been quite otherwise, “you who are so defiant about being a lover of women.”
“Defiant?” Camilla shrugged. “Perhaps. If you had had my experience, you would not think so much, perhaps, of what men desire of women.” She turned her eyes away, but Rafaella, thinking of the terrible scars Camilla bore, guessed at something too dreadful to be spoken. She put her arms around the older woman in silent sympathy, but Camilla was rigid, unmoving. She said, “I did not die. That is what I cannot forgive myself. To live with the memory. That is what none of my kinswomen could forgive me; that I lived when a decent woman would have died.” She pulled herself free of Rafaella’s arms. “Don’t touch me, Rafaella, I’m not fit to live.”
“Don’t say that, Camilla, don’t—” Rafaella said, holding her.
After a moment the older woman shuddered and said “I’m sorry. I get like that sometimes. And when I heard you were pregnant, it seemed I could not bear my hate—that you were young, lovely, cherished . . . but it was myself I hated . . . for all the things I would never have or enjoy . . . .” She smiled, bleakly, in the dark. “It is all born of nightmares. Forgive me, Rafaella.”
“I think,” Rafaella said, subdued, turning her hand within the chain so that her hand lay within Camilla’s, “that I should ask you to forgive me instead, breda.”
“We will forgive one another, then,” Camilla said, squeezing the soft hands. “Come, you must sleep, it is not good for a woman with child to lose sleep this way. Here, will you sleep better like this?” She eased the pillow under Rafaella’s side and neck. “Lie quite still, and when you wake up tomorrow, maybe you will not be sick and I can sleep a little longer.”
They were chained together for another three days; but now they had learned to help one another, and it cemented a friendship which was to endure lifelong, and go so deep that, in years after, neither could ever remember why they had quarreled.
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House Rules
Marion Zimmer Bradley
“Here is my book, Mama,” Loren said. “Will you hear me read?”
“Certainly.” Lora felt the skinny little boy leaning against her knee and felt the tears welling up again inside her. Two more months and then Loren must be sent to his father. To be made into the kind of man I despise, the kind of man who fills Amazon Guild Houses. Because of the rules of the Guild House that a boy child may not live among women, and Loren was no longer a baby.
Janna came bursting in, her hair long and messy around her shoulders. “Mama, what’s for dinner?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet, Janni,” Lora said. “Why don’t you go out in the kitchen and see if there are any potatoes left; I’ll fry them in goose fat.”
“I’m tired of potatoes,” Janna said, “When will we have meat again?”
“When we can afford it.” Lora said. “Janna, why are you wearing your holiday smock?”
“Because it’s the only decent dress I have,” Janna whined. “Am I supposed to go around in breeches all the time like you and Marji?”
“Why not? What is wrong with them? You can work properly in them,” Lora said, but she might as well have spoken to the wind.
It is Cara’s doing. We should never have taken her into the House; she was very bad for Janni, Lora thought. She hardly knew her nice obedient child in this sullen brat
who seemed to spend all her day arranging her hair and painting her nails, who would not work in the barn or the fowl house because she hated to get her hands dirty, and last week she had caught Janni, hardly ten years old, lingering at the gate, twisting her curls and simpering as she talked to young Raul of King’s Head Farm. Ten, and already making eyes at the lads. What did we do wrong, Marji and I? Janna was one of the reasons I fled from Darren, a few days after Loren was born . . . so Janna would not be pushed into being a stick in a pretty frock, good for nothing but to dress up, simper at boys, and giggle and talk about boys.
Marji called from the back door, “Lora? Are you home?” and Lora pushed her unwilling daughter into the kitchen.
“Take the skins from the potatoes and slice them,” she ordered, and Janna sulked.
“I spend all my time in kitchen work. If I lived with Papa at least there would be kitchen-women to do the work for me. I am a kitchen slave, that’s all. And I have to be one because you and Marji—”
“That’s enough,” Lora commanded. “There are no kitchen slaves in the Guild; but you know no other work as yet. Marji and I do our share of the kitchen work, but I have other work to do. I have to bathe the baby before supper and you are not yet big enough to do that. And Marji is working this week getting in Farmer Coll’s hay.”
“The women said she could have married Farmer Coll,” Janna grumbled, “and she wouldn’t have to slave in the fields all the time.”
And that, Lora thought, would have been a good trade? Coll was forty-nine, and had buried three wives already.
“I’ll run away, like Cara,” Janna grumbled. “I saw her today; she said when she and Ruyval are married I can come and live with her. At least she’s a woman, a natural woman.”
“That’s enough, Janna,” Lora commanded and went through to the front hall, where Marja n’ha Carisse was taking off her boots. They hugged each other, and Marji asked, “Nice day?”
“No, Janna’s at it again. Spent the whole day playing about with her hair and down at the gate simpering to talk with that wretched Raul from the farm. Cara’s simply ruined her. All she thinks of is clothes and boys.”
“We should have sent Cara away a year ago,” Marji agreed. “I did not realize how much harm she was doing Janna. I was like that at her age, thinking of nothing but clothes and boys; she’ll get over it. We did.”
“But not in time,” Lora wailed. “Now she wants to go and live with her father, and keeps threatening it. It’s bad enough that I have to send Loren—how can I bear to give up my baby girl, too!”
“There, there,” Marji said comfortingly. “You are protected by the Oath, and the magistrate said Janna could live with you. But if she wants to go, it will do her no good to stay here. Next time she threatens to go to her father, don’t just let her go, make her go. She’ll learn. How is my baby?”
“I haven’t bathed her yet,” Lora said submissively, and Marji held her. “It won’t hurt her to go without a bath for a night. You look so tired, Lori. It’s too hard on you, being saddled with all the children while I get out among human beings all day. When haying is over I will stay home for a while and you can find work; it’s not fair you should have Callie as well as your two all day, all year.”
“Callie is giving me no trouble, at least. At that size, as long as I keep her dry and fed, she makes no other demands.” Lori said. “And speaking of Callie, I hear her . . . .”
She ran into the next room, returning after a moment with a tousled, sleepy two-year-old. Marji kissed her daughter, and, carrying her over her arm, went through into the kitchen where Janna was sullenly peeling cold boiled potatoes. “Here, Janni, give those to me, I’ll make a cream sauce for them, and the farm wife gave me some bacon; I’ll cook it for supper.” She set about preparing the meal. “No, sit down, Lori, you’re worn out. Where is Lynifred?”
“A messenger came from Arilinn; a man there has a sick horse and she went to doctor it; she will not be back till tomorrow,” said Lora.
“Did you remind her that we need leather for boots for the children?”
“Yes, she said she would bring some, and then I can make boots for Janna and Callie as well as the ones Loren will need,” said Lora, and began to cry again.
Marji patted her shoulder, dished up the potatoes and fried bacon, then sat down with Callie on her knee and began to feed her daughter.
When the smaller children were in bed, and Marji and Lora were tidying the kitchen, Marji said “I saw Cara in the market. She and that boy were married . . . .”
“Goddess protect her,” Lora said, “Cara is not sixteen!”
“Not before time, though,” said Marji. “She is beginning to show.”
“Well, she had nowhere else to go, after we threw her out,” said Lora, “I feel it’s my fault. We should have been more patient with her.”
“But, my dear,” Marji said, “we could not keep her, not when she was stealing from us. We forgave her a dozen times, but she was never a true Renunciate in spirit. Going about with her tunic unlaced down to here—” she gestured, “and spending all her time gawking and giggling about with the boys instead of staying properly in the house and helping you with the children! We should have sent her to Neskaya or Thendara for proper training—we had no Guild-mistress here to teach her proper behavior. And then we went into her chest and found all your best holiday skirts retrimmed—and she had sworn she had not seen them—”
“Oh, I know; but still, I feel I failed her, I tried to treat her like my own child—”
“And so did I, and so did Lynifred,” said Marji, “but done is done, and she seems happy. I only hope Janna does not follow in her footsteps.”
“That’s what worries me,” said Lora. “But perhaps if she lives with her father for a year or two, she will appreciate the Guild House. Come, my dear, let’s lock up for the night.”
~o0o~
Lying sleepless at Marji’s side, while her freemate slept, Lora thought of how they had established the first small Guild House this side of the river, with three women; herself—and her daughter Janna, then five, and the infant Loren, still at the breast—fleeing from her husband who had beaten her and abused her.
Worst of all, he had forbidden her to read, or to read to Janna . . . books, he said, only kept a woman from what was proper for her. When he had wanted to betroth Janna, at five, to the thirty-year-old lord of the nearby estate, she had rebelled and fled to the Neskaya Guild House to take the Oath.
Then she had met Marji, newly come to the Guild, pregnant at that time with Callie. When her husband kept on pestering the Neskaya Guild House, the Guild-mother had sent them both to establish a Guild House here in this little village, with Lynifred, a veteran Renunciate almost fifty years old. For more than a year the village had treated them like outcasts, especially when they took in the runaway Cara at fourteen, until Lynifred managed to save a dozen horses who had been poisoned by witchgrass, and Lora went down to the village and offered to teach women the special skills of midwifery that she had learned in the Arilinn Guild House. Now they had been, to some degree, accepted; women in need of a midwife were as likely to summon her as the dirty, slatternly old woman who had been the village midwife since anyone could remember. Lynifred was now the local horse-doctor, all the better liked because she was not above removing a bone from a cat’s throat, or splinting the leg of a dog caught in a trap. “They are the Goddess’ creatures, too,” she said, “even if they are not riches like horses or cattle.”
The trouble had started, she thought, when Cara discovered boys and in no Amazon spirit had decided she wanted to experiment with them. This Janna had heartily followed, too, against Lora’s prohibition.
Cara had seemed interested only in catching a husband. Well, now she had one, and Lora honestly hoped the girl was happy.
Marji hired herself out to work in the fields, which was awkward, because Farmer Coll wanted to marry her, and had accused her of trying to snare him with spells; fortuna
tely there was not too much superstition in the village. Still it was an awkward situation, since Coll was regarded as a good catch, and the local women, many of whom would have liked to be Farmer Coll’s wife, felt angry because Marji scorned what they thought so valuable, while Marji only wished Coll would marry one of them, and be done with it.
Lora knew she must sleep; there were only three more days before Loren must go to his father, and she supposed Janna would choose to go, too. Deeply as Lora loved her daughter, she knew Janna was not happy; but she did not think Janna would be happy in her father’s house either; and she shrank from the thought of losing both children.
She felt she had not slept at all when she heard sounds in the kitchen, and roused up to go and make up a fire; Lynifred had ridden in at dawn and with her was another woman, muffled in cloak and boots against the early chill.
“This is Ferrika, midwife at Armida,” Lynifred said. The strange woman wore an Amazon earring but wore ordinary skirts, not the usual breeches and leather boots.
“I must work among ordinary people,” Ferrika said. “There is no sense in antagonizing them before they know me.”
Lora put on a kettle for tea, and cooked a big pot of oatmeal porridge, and with it fried a little of the bacon Marji had brought home. The women sat with their feet to the fire, drying their snow-stiffened cloaks, and Ferrika asked for the news.
“Only that a fosterling whom we had to ask to leave has married, and is running about already showing her pregnancy less than a tenday past the marriage,” said Lora despondently. “It says little for our care of her.”
“I am sure the villagers know her ways as well as we do,” Lynifred said. “It is not a reflection on your quality as a mother, Lora.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Lora answered. “Janna is beginning to imitate her—nothing in her head but boys, and fussing with her clothes.”
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