The Saga of the Renunciates (42 page)

Magda looked at her empty plate. “I will do what I can.”

“You saw the little girl who brought in your dinner? Her name is Doria, and she is fifteen; she will take the oath at Midsummer. She has lived among us since she was born, but the law forbids us to instruct girls below legal age in our ways. So that you, and she, will be in training together. You are not of our world, Margali. Yes, I know you were born here, but your people are so different from ours that some things may be strange and hard to endure.I know so little of the Terrans that I cannot even guess what those things may be, but Jaelle came here at twelve from the Dry-Towns and she had many difficulties; and a few years ago we had a woman here from the rain forests far beyond the Hellers. She had courage toward us, and good will, but she was really ill with the shock of finding so many things new and strange. And most of these were little things which we all accepted as ordinary to life; we had never guessed how hard she would find it. We do not want you to suffer in that way, so there are two courses we can take, Margali.”

The old woman looked sharply at Magda.

“We can tell all of your sisters here that you are Terran born, and all of us can be alert to help you in small things and make allowances for you. But like all choices, this one would have its price; there would be a barrier between you and your sisters from the beginning, and they might never wholly accept you as one of us. The alternative is to tell them only that you were born in Caer Donn, and let you struggle as best you can with the strangenesses. What do you want to do, Margali?”

I never realized what a snob I was
, Magda thought. She had not expected them to understand culture shock, and here Mother Lauria was explaining it to her as if she were not very intelligent. “I will do what you command, my lady.”

She had used the very formal
casta
word,
domna
, and Mother Lauria looked displeased.

“First of all, I am not
my lady
,” she said. “We do not free ourselves from the tyranny of titles imposed by men, only to set up another tyranny among ourselves. Call me Lauria, or Mother if you think I deserve it and you wish to. Give me such respect as you would have given your own mother after you were grown out of her command. And I cannot command you in this; it is you who must live by your decision. I cannot even counsel you properly; I know too little of your people and their ways. I am sure that some day, all of us will have to know you are Terran; do you think you can overcome that strangeness? You need not carry that handicap unless you choose; but they might make more allowances for you…”

Magda felt doubtful. Jaelle had known she was Terran, and it had certainly helped ease them through some difficulties. Yet, though she and Jaelle had come to love each other, there had been strangeness between them. She said hesitantly, “I will—I will defer to your advice, Lauria, but I think—at first—I would rather be one of you. I suppose all women have strange things to face when they come here.”

Lauria nodded. “I think you have chosen rightly,” she said. “It might have been easier the other way; but this very ease might have left unresolved some strangenesses you would never settle. And I suppose you do truly want to be one of us—that you are not merely studying us for your Terran records.” She smiled as she said it, but Magda detected a faint lift, almost of question in her voice, as if even Mother Lauria doubted her sincerity. Well, she would simply have to prove herself.

Mother Lauria looked at an ancient clock, the kind with hands and some internal mechanism with a swinging pendulum. She rose to her feet.

“I have an appointment in the city,” she said, and Magda remembered that this woman was the President of the Guild of Craftswomen. “Since you have no close friend in the house now, I have told the dormitory keepers to give you a room by yourself; later, if you make a friend and wish to share a room with her, there will be time enough to change.” Magda was grateful for that; until this moment it had not occurred to her that she might have been thrust into a room filled with two or three other women, all of whom had known one another most of their lives.

Mother Lauria touched the little bell. “You are not afraid to sleep alone, are you? No, I suppose not, but there are women who come to us who have never been alone in their lives, nurses and nannies when they are small, maids and lady-companions when they are older; we have had women go into a screaming panic when they find themselves alone in the dark.” She touched Magda’s hair lightly and said, “I will see you tonight at dinner. Courage, Margali; live one day at a time, and remember nothing is ever as bad or as good as you think it will be. Now Doria will show you over the house.”

Magda wondered, as Mother Lauria went away,
Do I really look that frightened
?

A few minutes later the young girl Doria came back.

“Mother says I am to show you around. Let’s pick up the trays and dishes first and take them out to the kitchen.”

The kitchen was deserted, except for a small dark-haired woman, drowsing as she waited for two huge bowlfuls of bread dough to rise. She raised her eyes sleepily as Doria introduced Magda to her.

“Margali, this is Irmelin—she is our housekeeper this half-year; we take turns helping her in the kitchen, but there are enough of us living here that no one needs to do kitchen duty more than once in a tenday. Irmelin, this is our new sister, Margali n’ha—what was it, Margali?”

“Ysabet,” Magda said.

“I saw you last night,” Irmelin said. “You came in with Jaelle—are you her lover?”

Mother Lauria had asked her this too. Reminding herself not to be angry—she was in another world now—she shook her head. “No—her oath-daughter, no more.”

“Really?” Irmelin asked, obviously skeptical, but she only looked at the bread dough. “It won’t have risen enough to knead for another hour—shall I help you show her around the house?”

“Mother Lauria told me to do it—you can stay in the kitchen and keep warm,” Doria laughed. “We all know that is why you volunteered to keep house this term, so you could sit by the fire like a cat.” Irmelin only chuckled, and Doria added, “Do you need anything from the greenhouse for supper, fresh vegetables, anything? Margali has no duties yet, she can help me fetch it.”

“You might ask if there are any melons ripe,” Irmelin said. “I think we are all tired of stewed fruit and want something fresh.” Irmelin yawned and looked drowsily at the bread dough again, and Doria went out, fanning herself vigorously with her apron, pulling Magda after her.

“Phew, I hate the kitchen on baking days, it’s too hot to breathe! But Irmelin makes good bread—it’s surprising how many women can’t make bread that’s fit to eat. Remind me to tell you sometime about the time when Jaelle took her turn as housekeeper, and Gwennis and Rafaella threatened to dump her out naked in the next blizzard if she didn’t get someone else to make the bread—” Doria chattered on, still fanning herself. It was certainly not too hot in the drafty corridor between kitchen and the long dining room where she had sat last night, a stranger, hiding in Jaelle’s shadow. And now it was her home for half a year, at least. There were long tables which would, Magda supposed, seat forty or fifty women, piled at one end, stacks of plates and bowls, covered with towels, awaiting the evening. Behind the dining hall was a greenhouse—the inevitable feature of most homes in Thendara—with solar collectors, and a woman wearing a huge overall wrap, kneeling in the dirt and patting soil around the roots of some plant Magda did not recognize. She was a big woman, with curly, almost frizzy straw-colored hair, her fingers grubby with soil.

“Rezi, this is Margali n’ha Ysabet, Jaelle’s oath-daughter. Irmelin asked me if there was any fresh fruit for tonight.”

“Not tonight or tomorrow,” said Rezi, “but perhaps after that; I have a few berries for Byrna—”

“Why should Byrna have them when there are not enough for us all?” demanded Doria, and Rezi chuckled. Her accent was coarse and country; she looked like one of the peasant women Magda had seen in the Kilghard hills, working in field or byre.

“Marisela ordered it; when you’re pregnant you’ll get the first berries too,” Rezi said, laughing.

Doria giggled and said, “I’ll make do with stewed fruit!”

They went on through the greenhouse, into the stable where half a dozen horses were kept with several empty stalls; a barn behind, clean and whitewashed with a pleasant smell of hay, held about half a dozen milk animals, and a small dairy where, Doria informed her, they made all their own butter and cheese. Shining wooden molds, well-scrubbed, hung on the wall, but again, the place was deserted. A winter garden, with scattered straw banking some buried root vegetables, looked bleak and chilly. Magda was shivering; Doria said, surprised, “Are you cold?” She herself had not even bothered to pull her shawl about her shoulders. “I thought you were from Caer Donn; it doesn’t seem cold at all, not to me. But we can go inside,” she agreed, and led the way through a huge room which she called the armory—there were weapons hanging on the walls—but which looked to Magda more like a gymnasium, with mats on the floors and a sign reading, in very evenly printed
casta: Leave your shoes neatly at the side; someone could fall over them
. There was a small changing room at the side, with towels and odd garments hanging on hooks, which reminded Magda of the Recreation Building in Unmarried Women’s Headquarters. Behind it was a larger room filled, to Magda’s amazement, with steam, and hidden in the steam, a pool of apparently hot water. She had heard that there were many private houses in Thendara located over hot springs, but this was the first time she had seen it. Another sign read
Please be courteous to other women; wash your feet before entering pool
.

“This was built only four or five years ago,” said Doria. “One of our rich patrons had it built in the house; before that, we had only the tubs on the dormitory floors! It’s very good after unarmed-combat lessons, to soak out the bruises! Rafi and Camilla are wonderful teachers, but they are rough on anyone they suspect of slacking! I’ve had lessons since I was eight years old, but Rafi is my oath-mother
and
my foster-mother, and she doesn’t like to teach me. Come, let’s go upstairs,” she added, and they went along another corridor to the stairs. “Here is the nursery at the top of the landing—there is no one in it now except Felicia’s little boy, and he will leave us in another moon; no male child over five may live in the Guild House. But Byrna will have a baby in another month,” she said, opening the door to the room, where a small boy was playing with some toy horses on a rug before the fire, and a young woman, sewing on something, sat in an armchair.

“How are you today, Byrna? This is Margali n’ha Ysabet, she is new—”

“I saw her last night at supper,” Byrna said, while Magda wondered if every woman in the house had noticed her. She rose restlessly, pacing the room. “I’m tired of dragging around like this, but Mansela said it would be at least another tenday, perhaps a whole moon. Where is Jaelle? I had hardly a minute to speak with her last night!”

Magda realized again how popular her friend must be. “She is working in the Terran Trade City.”

Byrna made a face. “Among the
Terranan
? I thought that was against the Guild House laws!” The tone of her voice made Magda realize how wise she had been to conceal her identity. She knew in general terms of the prejudice against Terrans but had never encountered it at close range before. Byrna asked, “What is your House, sister?” and Magda replied, “This one, I suppose—I am here for half a year training—

“Well, I hope you will be happy here,” Byrna said. “I’ll try to help make you welcome when this is over—” she patted her bulging belly.

Doria jeered. “Maybe
next
Midsummer you’ll sleep alone!”

“Damn right,” said Byrna, and Magda mentally filed that away with what Mother Lauria had told her about contraceptives. “Where is she going to sleep, Doria? In your room?”

Doria giggled. “There are five of us in there already. Mother Lauria said she’s to have Sherna’s room while Shema’s in Nevarsin.” She led Magda along the hallway, pushing open the door of a room with half a dozen beds. She said “We got permission this year for all of us to share—Mother Millea said we could all room together if we promised to be quiet so others could have their sleep. We have a lot of fun. Here are the baths—” she pushed a door, showing a room with tubs and sinks, “and here is where you put your laundry, and here is the sewing room, if anything needs mending and you can’t do it yourself. And this is Sherna’s room—yours now; she and Gwennis shared it for two years, then Gwennis moved in with her friend—” She gave the word the inflection which made it also mean
lover
. Well, that must be commonplace enough, Irmelin had asked it about her, casually, and gone on to make a comment about the bread dough!

Doria pointed to a bundle on the bed. “Mother Lauria arranged with the sewing room to find you some spare clothes— nightgowns, undertunics, and a set of work clothes if you have to work in the garden or stable. I think most of them were Byrna’s—she is so pregnant now that she can’t wear any of her clothes, but by the time she has her baby and needs them back, you’ll have made your own.”

Well, thought Magda, looking at the clothes on the bed, they were sparing no pains to make her feel welcome; they had even included a comb and hairbrush, and some extra wool socks, as well as a warm fleecy thing she presumed was a bathrobe; it was fur-lined and looked luxurious. The room was simply furnished with a narrow bed, a small carved-wood chest, and a low bench with a bootjack.

Doria stood watching her. “You know that you and I are to take training together? But you are so much older than I—how did you come to the Amazons?”

Magda told as much of the truth as she could. She said “A kinsman of mine was held to ransom by the bandit Rumal di Scarp; there was no one but I to ransom him, so I went alone, and wore Amazon dress to protect myself on the road; when I met with Jaelle’s band on the road I was discovered and forced to take the oath.‘’