The Saga of the Renunciates (41 page)

Peter muttered something Jaelle knew to be a polite noncommittal social noise, but once again her erratic
laran
carried his thoughts as if he had spoken them aloud.

Not fair, dammit, I spent five years setting things up so that when Darkover got an Intelligence service I’d be at its head, and now some damned
woman
walks in and takes over. Bad enough playing second fiddle to Magda
…

She lost the contact then, but she had heard enough to make her look at Peter in dread and dismay. She liked Cholayna, and thought she would like working with her, in spite of the strange color of the woman’s skin and her unreadable dark eyes; but if Peter felt this way, what should she do?

As the doors of Thendara Guild House swung shut behind her, Magda thought, with a strange, desperate intuition,
I must never look back. Whatever I was before this, I must leave it forever behind me, and look only ahead
…

Around her a great hall arose, panelled in dark woods and hung with curtains which gave an effect of space and air and light. The snub-nosed young girl had opened the door for her, directed her across the hall and said “The Guild Mother Lauria is waiting for you.” She looked curiously at Magda, but only shoved her through another door, where the Guild Mother, Lauria n’ha Andrea, head of the Independent Guild of Craftswomen in Thendara, and one of the most powerful women in the city, waited for her. Lauria was a tall, sturdy woman, her gray hair shorn close about her head, one ear bearing an earring with a carved ensign and a crimson stone. She rose and extended her hand to Magda.

“Welcome, my child. You have been told, I know, that this will be your only home for half a year; until two moons past midsummer-day. During this time you will be instructed in our ways, and while you have the freedom of house and garden, you may not step outside the wall nor into the street, except on Midsummer-Festival when all rules are suspended, or under the direct orders of your oath-mother or one of the Guild Mothers.” She smiled at Magda and said, “You have shown us that you are willing to honor your oath, even though you took it unwilling; you will promise me to keep this rule, will you not? You are a woman grown, and not a child.”

“I will obey,” said Magda, but it seemed a bleak prospect, half a year, through the long, bitter Darkovan winter, oath-bound not to step outside. Well, she had wanted this, why should she complain at getting what she wanted?

“Mind you,” Mother Lauria said, “this is within reason. Should the house take fire, or some other catastrophe occur, which all Gods forbid, use your own soundest judgment; you are not pledged to lunatic obedience! You are bound to the house only so that you will not be confused by daily meetings with women who live in ways you must learn not to imitate. Do you understand?”

“I think so.” They used to call it
deprogramming;
women on Darkover are brainwashed by the social roles expected of them, till it is a miracle that any of them are free enough to rebel and join the Renunciates. She remembered hearing Jaelle say once,
Every Renunciate has her own story and every story is a tragedy
. In such a traditional society as Darkover, only the desperately rebelling would dare break away.

I have rebelled against my home world and my adopted world too
… but she cut off that thought as self-pity and turned to the older woman, who beckoned her into a chair.

“I suppose you are hungry and weary? But you do not want to face everyone just now in the dining room for the noon meal, do you? I thought not…” and she touched a little bell. The snub-nosed girl who had let Magda inside, appeared in the door.

“Bring something from the dining room, for me and for our new sister,” she said, and as the little girl went out—she could not, Magda thought, be more than thirteen—Mother Lauria gestured to a chair beside the fireplace—no fire was burning, at this time of year. “Sit down and let us talk awhile; there are decisions to be made.”

At the far end of the office was a great wooden door with copper panels; the door was hacked about as if with an axe, and partially burnt. Magda stared at the battered relic, and Mother Lauria followed her eyes.

“It has been here for more than a hundred years,” she said. “The wife of a wealthy merchant in Thendara ran away to us, because her husband had illused her in ways too gross to repeat, and had finally required her to sleep in the attic and to wait on her husband and his new concubine in her own bed. The woman took oath with us; but her husband hired an army of mercenaries and we were forced to fight; he swore he would raze this house over our heads. Rima—this was her name—offered to return to him; she said she would not be the cause of our deaths. But we were not fighting for her alone, but for the right to live without male sufferance. We fought three days—you can see the marks of the battle.”

Magda shivered; the slashed, burnt door looked as if, at one point, an axe had chopped halfway through it.

“And you stood against them?”

“If we had not, neither you nor I should be here,” said Lauria. “All Gods grant that one day we shall all enjoy our freedom as of right, without keeping it at sword’s point; but until that day we are prepared to defend our rights with the sword. Now, tell me a little more about yourself. I have heard the story from Jaelle, of course. Your name is—”she stumbled over it. “Mak-ta-lin Lor-ran?” She made a wry face. “Will it suit you if you use Jaelle’s name for you, Margali?”

“That
is
my name,” Magda said. “The name my father and mother gave me; I was born in Caer Donn. I was never called Magda except in the Terran Zone.”

“Margali, then. And I see you speak the language of the Hellers, and are fluent in
casta;
can you speak Cahuenga as well?”

“I can,” Magda replied in that language, “though my accent is not good.”

“Your accent is no worse than any other newcomer to the City. Jaelle has told me you can read and write; is this in Standard only, or in
casta
?”

“I can read and write
casta
,” she said. “For my father was an expert in languages, and he wrote the—” she hesitated, groping for a Darkovan way to explain a dictionary. “A compilation of your language for strangers and foreigners. And my mother was a musician, and made many transcriptions of folk songs and music of the Hellers.”

Mother Lauria pushed a pen and a scrap of paper toward her. “Let me see you copy this,” she said, and Magda looked at the scroll and began to copy the top line; she recognized the scroll as a poem her mother had set to music. She was not used to Darkovan pens, which were not as smooth as the ones she used for her own work. When she finished, Mother Lauria took the paper in her hand.

“A clumsy hand and girlish,” she said severely, “but at least you are not illiterate; many women when they come to us can only spell out their names. You have not the making of a scribe, but I have seen worse.”

Magda flushed at this harsh judgment; she felt bruised and offended; she had never been accused of clumsiness in her entire life.

“Let us see what we can do with you, then. You are no scribe. Can you sew? Embroider?”

“No, not even a little,” said Magda, remembering her attempt to botch together her trail clothes at Ardais.

“Can you cook?”

“Only for the trail, when traveling.”

“Can you weave, or do dyeing?”

“Not even a little.”

“Do you know anything of plants and gardening?”

“Even less, I fear.”

“Can you ride?”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” Magda said, glad to arrive at something which she
could
do.

“Can you saddle your own horse, care for his tack, look after his feed and care? Good; I am afraid we will have to put you to work in the stables,” said Mother Lauria. “Do you mind?”

“No, of course not,” Magda said. But she had to confess ignorance again when the woman asked if she knew anything of farriery, of metalworking and forging, of veterinary medicine, dairying, cheesemaking, animal husbandry or bootmaking, and she had to answer no to all of these things. Mother Lauria looked a little more approving when Magda said that she had been trained in both armed and unarmed combat; but she said thoughtfully “You have a good deal to learn,” and Magda guessed that Mother Lauria was as relieved as she was herself when the fair-haired, snub-nosed girl reappeared with trays and jugs.

“Ah, here is our dinner. Set it down here, Doria.”

The girl uncovered the tray; a bowl of some kind of baked grain with a sauce of vegetables, mugs of something which tasted like buttermilk, and some sliced fruit, preserved in honey or syrup. She gestured to Magda to help herself, and ate in silence for some time. Finally, as she folded her napkin, she asked, “How old are you?”

Magda assumed she meant Darkovan reckoning, and told her age; only later did she realize that Mother Lauria had been testing to see if she could reckon the difference between the relatively short Terran year and the much longer Darkovan.

“You have been married, Margali? Have you a child?”

Magda shook her head silently. That had been one of the main causes of tension between them, that she had not given Peter the son he wished for.

“Has that marriage been formally dissolved, as I gather you Terrans can do by mutual consent?”

Magda was surprised that Mother Lauria knew this much. “It has. Terran marriage is not quite like Freemate marriage, but it is nearer to that than to the Darkovan
catenas
. We agreed to separate more than a year ago.”

“That is fortunate; if you had a child under the age of fifteen, you would be required to make arrangements for its care. We do not allow women to take refuge here if they have obligations outside which have not been met. I assume you have not an aged parent who is dependent on you?”

“No; my mother and father have been dead for many years.”

“Have you another lover now?”

Silently Magda shook her head.

“Will it be a great hardship to you, to live without a lover? I suppose, since you and your husband have been separated for some time, you have grown accustomed to sleeping alone; but will it be very difficult for you? Or are you perhaps a lover of women?” She used the very polite term, and Magda was not offended—she supposed that any society composed only of women must attract a certain percentage of those who would rather die or renounce everything than marry. She found this line of questioning uncomfortably personal, but she had promised herself that she would answer everything as honestly as she could. “I do not think I shall find it unendurably painful,” and only after she had spoken did she realize how sarcastic it sounded. Mother Lauria smiled and said, “I hope not; but especially during your housebound time, this can be a problem, as anyone but a child would know. Let me think—it is hard to remember what to ask you. Have you been taught methods to prevent the conception of an unwanted child?”

Magda was really shocked now; of course such teaching was routine at puberty for any Terran, male or female, but she had been brought up in Caer Donn and absorbed the Darkovan attitude which considered such things proper only for prostitutes. She said “Yes,” but wondered what the older woman must think of her, confessing to such knowledge!

Mother Lauria nodded calmly. “Good. We have the women in the Towers to thank for that; women who work in the matrixes must not risk interrupting their term by an undesired pregnancy, yet it is not possible to require that they remain celibate, sometimes for many years. There is an ancient bond between the women of Neskaya Tower and the Guild of Renunciates, which goes back to the history of the Guild; we were formed, as you may know, in the days of Varzil the Good, from two separate houses of women; the Priestesses of Avarra, who were an order of Healer-priestesses trained in
laran
, and the Sisterhood of the Sword, who were, during the time of the Hundred Kingdoms and the Hastur Wars, a guild of woman soldiers and mercenaries. Some day you shall read this history, of course. The Priestesses of Avarra taught us many things which could be done by any women, including those who had no
laran
, though of course it is easier for those who do. Among the Renunciates, it is criminal to bear a child who is not wanted by mother and father, and for whom no happy home is waiting, so we require this instruction for all our women.” She took pity on Magda’s embarrassment and said, “Oh, my dear, I am sure you feel foolish, but I must deal with blushes, outraged modesty and outright refusal from women who swear they would rather forswear men entirely. But it is our law; every woman, even those who have never lain down with a man and never intend to do so, must know these things. They need never use them, but they may not remain ignorant. Twice in a tenday, at our house meetings, one of our midwives talks to the younger women. Are you strong and healthy? Can you do a good day’s work without tiring?”

“I’ve never done a great deal of manual work,” Magda said, relieved at the change of subject, “but when I was traveling I could spend all day in the saddle when I must.”

“Good; many women who live indoors, doing only women’s work, grow sickly for lack of exercise, and we have not so much sunshine here that we can afford to be without it. You may laugh to see grown women playing games and skipping rope like children, but it is not only little girls who need to run about and exercise. I hope you are not too modest to swim when the weather permits?”

“No, I like to swim,” Magda said, but wondered when, on frozen Darkover, the weather permitted!

“Are your monthly cycles regular? Do they give you much trouble?”

“Only when I was living offworld,” Magda said; she had found them troublesome in the Empire Training School, adjusting to different gravity and light and circadian rhythms; she had been in and out of the Medic office all the time, while she was on the Alpha planet, and had been given hormone shots and various kinds of treatment. Back on Darkover, she had reverted to her usual good health. She explained that, and added, “Before I was sent on this mission—the one to Ardais—I was given treatment by Terran medics to suppress ovulation and menstruation; it is fairly routine for women in the field. At Ardais Jaelle asked me about this—she thought I was pregnant.”

“That treatment is something we would find priceless,” said Mother Lauria. “I hope your Terrans will help us learn it; when women must work alongside men, or travel for a long time in bad weather, it would be a great convenience. Some women have been desperate enough to consider the neutering operation, which is very dangerous. We do have a few drugs which destroy fertility for a period of half a year or more, but they are too strong and dangerous: I do not recommend that any woman use them. But women who have a great deal of trouble with their cycles, or women who have no talent for celibacy and great ease in getting pregnant—well, we elders cannot forbid them that choice. Now there is a very important decision to be made, and you must make it, Margali.”