The Saga of the Renunciates (22 page)

To a planet where a woman can have something genuine to do.
She thought, bleakly, that at least her coup with the Free Amazons-
I've quadrupled all existing knowledge about them
-would bring her an offer worthy of her capabilities.

The thought of leaving Darkover brought sharp, tearing pain, almost a physical agony. But there was no other way. She knew she could no longer endure the ordinary life of a woman op this world, nor the limited work that a woman could do here for the Empire.

If I
could live here as a Free Amazon...
but the price of keeping her oath was Peter's death by torture.

He is Darkovan, too. Would he accept his life, knowing I had bought it by oath breaking and the sacrifice of integrity?
The thought was too painful to endure. Magda forced herself to get up, to break off the endless, useless self-questioning.

Jaelle, already dressed, was standing by the fire, making up a hot drink from roasted grain; Magda had tasted it a few times in Caer Donn. She dipped up a cup for Magda, and said, "I made them let you sleep; you must have been wearied to death. The others are out with the horses, making ready to go. This morning you and I take the road for the Guild-house, where your name will be written on the rolls of the Charter."

Magda said, in a last desperate attempt to get through to her, "I have told you my mission is life and death; my kinsman will die by torture if I do not ransom him at midwinter."

Jaelle looked sympathetic. But she said, "By oath, sister, you renounced loyalty to any man, and to any household, family or clan. Your loyalties are to us now."

Magda clenched her fists in utter despair. Jaelle said gently, "When we reach the Guild-house, you may lay your case before the Guild-mothers; it may be that when they have heard all, they will decide that your claim does not violate the oath, and send someone in your place to ransom him. There would be tune for that. But I am not empowered to make that decision."

Magda turned abruptly away.
So be it,
she thought grimly;
on your own head, Jaelle, even if I have to kill you.

The other women came from the barn, laughing, chattering, talking of the ride ahead. Jaelle said, "The rest of you may ride when you will, but you must choose another leader; Margali and I must ride for Neskaya."

"Oh, Jaelle," Gwennis protested, "you took this mission because your brother is there, and you have not seen him in year's! Appoint one of us to take her to Neskaya for you! I will gladly change with you."

Jaelle laughed, shaking her head. "Why, I just reproved Margali, reminding her that our first loyalty is to Guild, not kindred! As for my brother, a boy of ten has little need for a visit from a grown sister; I can see him at Ardais in midsummer, and anyway, no doubt dom Gabriel has taught him enough about the family disgrace that I am sure he would rather be spared my visit!"

Magda asked, "Is your brother a monk, then?"

"Oh, no! But he has been sent there, like many Comyn sons, to learn to read 'and write and to hear something of our history. He is Rohana's fosterling; I have seen him but once since he was three years old."

Pretending interest, she asked the nature of the mission.

"At Nevarsin, the monks keep the records of much knowledge lost elsewhere since the Ages of Chaos. They will not teach women, and we are not even allowed to stay in the guesthouse, but we have leave to use their library. Our best scribes, a little at a time, are transcribing their books on anatomy and surgery, as well as those on birth and the diseases of women-books you would think they would turn over to us entirely, since the monks can make no use of them. We are allowed to have only two scribes there at a time; Rayna and Sherna are going there to change with two women who have been there for half a year, and Gwennis to keep house for them in the village, while Camilla will escort the others home."

Magda toyed with a bowl of the powdered porridge. She was curious, but asked no more questions. It went against the grain to pretend friendliness with a woman she might have to kill.

Soon after, the other women rode away, leaving Magda and Jaelle alone. While they were saddling their horses, Jaelle discovered that hers had a loose shoe.

"I wish I had discovered it before Gwennis left," she said. "She is no blacksmith, but I have seen her make emergency repairs. Well, we must stop in the nearest village. Just look at that!" She handed the shoe to Magda, who stood weighing it in her hand as Jaelle bent to examine the horse's hoof.

I
could stun her with it and get away now...

But she waited too long; Jaelle turned back and held out her hand for the shoe, dropping it into her saddlebag.

It was a bright morning, almost cloudless, with a brisk cold wind blowing. Jaelle sniffed the wind, started to throw a leg into her saddle-and at that moment Magda heard a savage yell and two men rushed them from the woods, knives drawn. In split-second shock, Magda recognized two of the bandits from last night: the black-bearded bandit leader, and the big man with the mustachios whom Jaelle had wounded. Magda heard herself shout a warning; Jaelle whirled, half out of her saddle. Then she was fighting, backed up against her horse, the two men almost hiding her from Magda's sight. Magda thought,
Run! Get away now; they're saving you the trouble of killing her.

But already she had her own knife out, was running toward them. Blackbeard whirled and Magda felt his knife graze her arm, a pain like fire, as she plunged her own knife deep into his chest; felt it turn on bone and slip. He slithered, with a groan, to the ground. Jaelle was still fighting with the other man; she saw that Jaelle was bleeding from a long slash on the cheek. Then she heard Jaelle scream with agony as the bandit's knife drove down toward her breast; she fell to the ground and at that Instant Magda felt her knife sink into the man's back.

He fell with a harsh sound, air escaping from lungs already no longer breathing. Slowly, feeling sick, she pulled out the knife.

I
haven't fought anyone since combat training, ten years ago. Now I've killed one and wounded another.
She looked at Jaelle, unconscious on the ground, almost under the body of the man Magda had killed.
Is he dead?
The thought did not bring relief, but a wrenching agony.
She fought for me, last night. And I would have betrayed her...

Jaelle stirred, and Magda knew that Jaelle's life still stood between her and her mission. She was still holding the bloody knife with which she had killed the bandit. She saw Jaelle's eyes move to the knife; she lay still, looking up at Magda without a word. Magda suddenly knew that she could not kill anyone in cold blood; above all she could not kill this woman who lay bleeding and helpless in the snow at her feet.

What good is Peter's life if I buy it with another death? I will save him honorably if I can; not otherwise.
She knelt beside Jaelle. Her face was covered with blood; more blood was soaking through her shoulder. She lifted the sticky clothes clinging to the wound.

The bandit's knife had gone under the collarbone and sliced down toward the armpit; a bad wound, painful and dangerous but not, Magda thought, necessarily fatal. She got out her knife again and cleaned the blade, saw that one of Jaelle's eyes was open-the other was clotted shut-and that she was watching the knife. Magda said irritably, "I've got to cut these clothes off so I can, stop the bleeding." She slit Jaelle's tunic and eased it gently away from the skin; Jaelle gasped with the pain but did not cry out. She only said, wetting her lips, "Did you-kill them both?"

"One is surely dead. I don't know about the other, but he isn't in any shape to harm us," Magda said.

Jaelle said, her breath coming loud, "Bandages... in my saddlebags...”

Magda got up, edging between the dead bandit and Jaelle's horse, which, smelling the blood, shifted its feet uneasily. She led the horse away and took down the saddlebags, hunting in them; she found two or three rolls, and what looked like a small, primitive first-aid kit.
That cut probably needs stitches, but I can't do it.
She made a pressure bandage, strapped it around Jaelle's shoulder, turned her attention to the long, hideous gash along Jaelle's face; it had laid her cheek open to the bone. Jaelle said, in a hoarse, frightened voice, "Can't see out of... this eye... "

Magda went to the well behind the shelter, dipped up the icy water, came back and sponged the dreadful gash. The eyelashes parted; a little more sponging showed
that
the eye had only been stuck shut with blood from a small nick in the eyelid. Magda pushed the eyelids open; Jaelle gasped with relief.

"Can you walk? You can't lie out here in the snow." Magda knelt, slipped an arm around the woman, managed to hoist her to her feet; Jaelle tried to walk, but collapsed against Magda. Magda managed, somehow, to get her inside the shelter and lay her on one of the stone benches. She started to build a fire, put some water to boil, thinking that some bark-tea, or some of the Amazon grain-brew, would do them both good. And if Jaelle was in shock-and she looked like it-she had better be kept warm. Not knowing how Jaelle had stowed her own blankets, Magda got out her own and wrapped Jaelle up in them; shoved one of the stone slabs into the fire, thinking she could heat it, wrap it in something and put it at the hurt woman's feet. When the water boiled she poured it on the bark for tea, and went out to put the animals away-they wouldn't be going anywhere right away. The second bandit was definitely dead. She had to drag him out of the way to get the horses and her pack beast into the stable again.

When she came into the shelter Jaelle was conscious. She whispered, "I thought you had gone."

Remotely, like something someone else might have thought, it occurred to Magda: she could have escaped. After doing her best for Jaelle, she could have left her here to recover, and felt no particular guilt. Now it was something she could never have done.
I
swore to treat every Amazon as my own mother, sister or daughter...

She fumbled for words, saying, "We are oath-bound-sister."

Jaelle put out her hand, a groping gesture that made Magda's heart ache, remembering how quick and skillful those hands had been. She whispered, "I told you-oath-mother and oath-daughter exchange gifts. I did not ask for such a gift as this."-

Magda felt embarrassed. "You'd better not talk anymore. Are you cold?" She got another blanket, put the hot stone at Jaelle's feet, propped her up to sip a little of the boiling tea. Jaelle touched her sleeve. "Tend your own wound."

Magda had forgotten it. "It's only a scratch."

"Just the same. Some mountain bandits... poison their blades," Jaelle said with difficulty. "Do as I say."

By the time Magda had finished Jaelle was asleep of unconscious again. And asleep or unconscious she remained all that day. Magda made herself some soup from dried meat, late in the day, and tried to rouse Jaelle to eat, but Jaelle only moaned and muttered and pulled away from her hands; Magda knew that she was feverish. Once she woke and asked quite clearly for a drink of water, but when Magda-brought it she was stuporous again and would not swallow.

Are there injuries I did not see? Or were the wounds poisoned after all?
Magda found that she was fighting terror and dread.
I
don't want her to die! I don't!

By nightfall Jaelle's skin was blistering hot, and Magda could not rouse her even for a moment. Jaelle muttered and flung herself around; once she began with her free hand to tear at the bandage on her face. Magda pulled her hand away, but a few minutes later Jaelle was clawing at the bandage again. Magda, thinking that if she got the bandage loose she might hurt herself, make the scar worse, took a roll of the bandage and tied Jaelle's hands at her sides. She was not prepared to hear Jaelle begin to scream: wild screams of panic and terror.

"Oh, no, no, no, no... don't chain my hands, don't-Mother, mother... don't let them... oh, don't... oh, no, no!" and the thin tearing screams again. Magda had never heard such terror. She could not bear it. Quickly she cut the bandage, lifted Jaelle's hands one after another to show that they were free. Somehow that penetrated Jaelle's delirium; she stopped shrieking and lay back quietly. About an hour later she began restlessly to tear at the bandage on her face again, but Magda had no notion of repeating whatever had terrified her so; instead she took the unconscious woman's hands firmly between her own and held them tight. She said quietly and firmly, "You must not do that; lie still, you will hurt yourself. I will not tie your hands, but you must be still." She repeated this over and over, several times, with variations.

Jaelle opened her eyes, but Magda knew she did not see her. She muttered, "Kindra," and later, "Mother," but let her hands rest in Magda's without struggling. Once she said, to no one present, "It hurt. But I didn't cry."

Most of that night Magda sat beside Jaelle, listening to her delirious mutterings, holding her hands tight whenever she tried to tear at the bandages or, as she started to do later, to climb out of bed, under some agitated impression-Magda gathered from her raving-that she was needed somewhere else, at once. Magda had nothing to give her for the fever; there were some medicines in Jaelle's saddlebags, but Magda did not know how to use them or what they were. She sponged her several tunes with the icy water from the well, and tried to make her drink, but Jaelle pulled away and would not swallow. Toward morning she sank into quiet; Magda did not know whether she was asleep or had lapsed into a coma and was dying. In either case there was nothing she could do. She lay down at the unconscious woman's side and closed her eyes for a moment's rest; suddenly the shelter was full of gray light and Jaelle was lying with her eyes open, looking at her.

"How do you feel, Jaelle?"

"Like hell," Jaelle said. "Is there some water, or tea, or something? My mouth has not been this dry since I left Shainsa."

Magda brought her a drink; Jaelle gulped it thirstily and asked for more. "Did you stay by me all night?"