The Saga of the Renunciates (48 page)

“Are all the sessions like that, I wonder?” Keitha asked aloud, and a woman who had not been present at the session— she had been introduced to Magda as Mansela, the house midwife and healer—came up and smiled at them both. She said “No, of course not; the next session I will conduct, at which time I will instruct you all in the female mysteries, supposing that some of you may have had mothers who were too shy to speak of such things to their daughters.”

“At least I will not be so completely ignorant at that,” Keitha said, “I have delivered children on my husband’s estates, and I was thought to have some skill as a midwife.”

“Oh indeed?” said Marisela, interested. She was a pretty woman, dressed, not in the Amazon boots and breeches, but in ordinary women’s clothes, a tartan skirt and shawl, over a full-sleeved tunic and bodice. “Then there will be no question of teaching you a trade; perhaps they will send you to Arilinn Guild House when your half-year is finished, to learn the midwife’s art and some of the special skills which the women in the Towers have taught us. If you have even a trace of
laran
, it will be very welcome. What about you, Margali? Have you any of the skills of a healer or midwife?”

“None,” confessed Magda. “I can bind a wound on the trail, or bandage a cut or scratch, but nothing more.” But as Marisela drew Keitha away, and the two sat down to talk together, Magda thought of the word she had used.
Laran
, the Darkovan term embracing telepathy, clairvoyance, and all the psychic arts. Rohana had tested her, during the winter she spent at Ardais, and told her that she herself had some trace of it.

Was that how she had come to see the curious visions she had seen? Had she been, unwittingly, spying on the meeting of the Sisterhood, with the
laran
she did not really understand and did not know how to control? It seemed, for a moment, that around Marisela’s slender shoulders she could almost see the gray mantle of Avarra… she wrenched her thoughts back to the music room and began inspecting some of the instruments. Some were familiar; her mother, who had spent her life studying Darkovan folk music, had played several of them. She recognized some
rryls
, both a small hand-held one and another tall one played standing before it; they were something like harps. Other instruments she would have classified as lutes, dulcimers and guitars, though there were no reed or brass instruments visible. There were a few others so alien she could not even imagine how they would be played.

“Do you play an instrument, Margali?” Rafaella asked, almost in a friendly way.

“I am sorry; I did not inherit even a little of my mother’s gift for music,” she said. “I love to listen, but I have no talent.”

The couple who had been embracing under the blanket in the armory were snuggled together in a corner now, the taller girl leaning on her friend’s shoulder, the other’s hand just barely touching her breast. Magda turned her eyes away, feeling uncomfortable. In public, like this? Well, it was, after all, their home, and they were young, not more than sixteen or so. Caresses as simple as this, exchanged in public by young people—if they had been boy and girl, instead of two young girls—would not have turned an eyebrow in the Terran Zone. Suddenly, with intense loneliness, she wished she were there.

She wondered if Jaelle were wishing the same thing.
Everything that seems so strange to me here
, she thought,
is dear and familiar to her
. She wondered if Jaelle felt equally alienated from everything she knew.

“Are you feeling homesick, Margali?” asked Camilla, behind her, and put her arm around Margali’s waist.

“A little, maybe,” Magda said.

“Don’t be angry with me for speaking to you so roughly, oath-sister; it is part of the training, to make you think.” She followed Magda’s eyes to the girls embracing in the corner.

“Thank the Goddess for that! Janetta has been moping so since Gwennis left, I was beginning to be afraid she would throw herself out the window! At least, now, she seems to be comforted.”

Magda did not know what to say. Fortunately, before she had to answer, Doria grabbed her elbow.

“Come and help me take the cups back to the kitchen, Margali, and put away the cakes that are left over. Irmelin is sulking because we did not eat them all up—do you want another one?”

Magda laughed and took another of the crisp little cookies. She helped Doria and Keitha gather up plates and cups, brush crumbs from the table and throw them into the fireplace. Rafaella was running her hands over the surface of the large
rryl
and Byrna called out “Sing for us, Rafi! We haven’t had music for a long time!”

“Not tonight,” Rafaella said. “I am too hoarse, after eating all those cakes! Another time; and besides, it is late, and I have to work tomorrow!” She covered the harp and went out of the room. Doria and Magda took the rest of the cups to the kitchen, and turned up the stairs. Just ahead of them, she saw Janetta and her friend, still clinging to one another, so mutually absorbed that they stumbled on the stairs and had to steady each other. Byrna behind Magda, sighed, watching them go off, arms still round one another, toward their room.

“Heigh-ho; there are two who will not sleep alone tonight,” she said as the door closed behind them, “I almost envy them.” Another deep sigh as she clasped her hands over the weight of her child. “What a she-donkey I am—what would I do with a lover now if I had one? I am so tired of this—

With a clumsy impulse to comfort, Magda hugged her. “But you’re not really alone, you have your baby—

“I’m just so
tired
, I want it to be
over
,” said Byrna, and her voice caught in a sob, “I can’t
stand
dragging around like this any longer—

“There, there, don’t cry—it won’t be long now,” Magda said, patting her shoulder gently. She led the sobbing woman to her own room, helped her off with her shoes—for Byrna was now so clumsy in the waist that she could not reach her feet— helped her into her nightgown and tucked her into bed. She kissed her on the forehead, but did not know what to say. Finally she said, “It can’t be good for your baby, to cry like this. Think of how good you’ll feel when it is all over,” and as she looked up, she saw Marisela on the doorstep.

“How are you feeling, Byrna? No signs yet?” she asked, and Magda, feeling superfluous, went away. Some of the women were still clustered in the hall; they exchanged goodnights, and went toward their own rooms, but Camilla lingered a moment.

“Are you lonely, oath-sister?” she asked gently, in an undertone. “Would you come tonight and share my bed?”

Magda was stiff with astonishment; for a moment she did not believe what she was hearing. It took an effort not to pull away from Camilla’s hand. She reminded herself that she was in a strange place and it was for her to adapt to
their
customs, not the other way round, Camilla had certainly meant no offense. She tried to turn it off lightly by a laugh.

“No, thank you, I think not ”
I’ve had some weird proposals, but this
… Camilla’s touch was not unpleasant, but Magda wished she could free herself from it without distressing the other woman or sounding unfriendly.

Camilla murmured “No? But I have not yet been welcomed back among you, oath-sister—” Her fingertips were just lightly touching Magda, but Magda was very aware of the touch and it embarrassed her. She was aware that some of the women still in the hallway were looking at them; but she was anxious to keep from offending Camilla, who had done nothing offensive by her own codes. She tried gently to free herself from the other’s touch and murmured very softly “I am not a lover of women, Camilla. But I thank you and I am glad to be your friend.”

The other woman laughed, unoffended. “Is that all?” she said, and, smiling, released Magda. “I thought you might be lonely, that is all; and we are oath-bound, and there is no other close to you in this house, with Jaelle away from us.” She leaned forward and kissed Magda gently. “We are all lonely and unhappy when first we come here, however glad we are not to be where we were before. It will pass,
breda
.” She used the intimate inflection, which could make the word mean
darling
or
beloved
, and that embarrassed Magda more than the kiss. “Good night; sleep well, my dear.”

Alone in her own bed, she thought about the evening. She knew intellectually that the raising of unanswered, and unanswerable questions, the deliberate arousing of emotions never fully faced, was taking its toll. She could not sleep, but lay awake, restlessly going over and over the questions and the many answers in her mind. Doria’s tears, the two young girls embracing, Byrna’s outburst, Camilla’s kiss on her lips—all spun together in fatigued, almost feverish images. What was she doing here among all these women? She was a free woman, a Terran, a trained agent, she need not wrestle with all these questions so important to the women enslaved by Darkover’s barbarian society.

Invisible chains
. … it was as if a voice had whispered it in her mind. Where was Jaelle now? Lying in Peter’s arms, in the Terran Zone. Mother Lauria had asked if she would find it too difficult to live without a lover. No,
that
was not what she wanted…

And then, abruptly, the image of the Goddess Avarra drifted before her eyes again, her compassionate face, her hands outstretched as if to touch Magda’s. Through all the unanswered questions and the turmoil in her heart, Magda suddenly felt a great peace and contentment washing outward through her mind.

She slept, still pondering; what is the difference between man and woman? What makes a
Comhi-letziis
? She slept, and in her dream she knew the answer, but when she woke she had forgotten it again.

Yes, certainly, you could pass within the Dry Towns as a native,” Jaelle said, studying the face of the tall, thin man before her, his beaked nose, high forehead, the shock of silver-gilt hair above it, “Fair hair is not common in the Domains, but most Dry-Towners are light-haired and pale-skinned. Your main problem would be the—the interlocking of customs and family relationships. You would have to have a very good story to cover what you were doing; it would be safer to pose as a man of the Domains, a trader.”

The man Kadarin nodded thoughtfully. He spoke the language, she thought, flawlessly. She could not guess his origin. “Perhaps you should travel with me, and keep me informed about customs—?”

She shook her head. Never, she thought, never. “I would have to wear chains and pretend to be your property,” she said, “and the Amazon oath forbids it. Surely there must be men among your Empire Intelligence—” she only heard the sarcastic tone in her voice after she had spoken, “or even women who are capable of that.”

“I’ll manage,” he said, “but I wish you could tell me more. Cholayna Ares said you had actually lived there till you were twelve—‘’

“Behind the walls of the Great House of Shainsa,” she reminded him, “guarded night and day by women-guards; I went beyond the walls only twice at a festival. And all I knew has been wrung out of me anyhow, by your damned D-alpha corticator or whatever you call it!”

Under light hypnosis, she had dredged up memories she had not even known she had. Playing with Jalak’s other daughters, twining ribbons about their arms, pretending they were old enough to be chained like women. The sight of a would-be intruder into the women’s quarters, his back flayed to ribbons, staked over a nest of scorpion-ants, and the sound of his screams; she could not have been more than three years old when her nurse had inadvertently let her see that, and until the session with the corticator she had wholly forgotten. Jalak, listlessly petting his favorites in the Great Hall at dinner. Her mother, in golden chains, holding her on her lap. Being punished for trying, with one of the boy-children of the house, to steal a glimpse out through the walls…

She shoved them all away, slamming her mind shut; that was over, over, except in nightmares!

And her mother’s death on the sand of the desert, her life bleeding away…

“I can tell you no more,” she said curtly, “Dress yourself as a trader new to the Dry-Towns, speak softly and challenge no man’s
kihar
, and you will come safe away. A foreigner may do in ignorance what one of their own would be killed for attempting.”

Kadarin shrugged. “It seems I have no choice,” he said, “I thank you,
domna
. And in return for all my questions, may I ask you one thing more, a personal question?”

“Certainly you may ask,” she said, “but I cannot promise you an answer.”

“What is a lady of the
Comyn
, with all the marks of that caste, doing among the Renunciates?”

The word
Comyn
dropped into the silence of the room, quiet and inoffensive, was, for Jaelle, weighted heavily with painful memory. She said, “I am not Comyn,” and left it at that.

“
Nedestro
, then, of some great house?”‘ he probed, but she shut her lips and shook her head. Not for worlds would she have told him that her mother had been Melora Aillard, bearing all the
laran
of that house, Tower-trained; kidnapped into the Dry Towns, married to Jalak of Shainsa… rescued by Free Amazons, only to die bearing Jalak’s son, in the lonely deserts outside of Carthon. Yet before his steel-gray eyes she wondered if perhaps he had enough
laran
to read it in her mind.

Laran
! The Terranan had something worse than
laran
, with their damned corticator which could stir up all the forgotten nightmares in the brain! She was told they had a strong psychic probe, too, but she had refused to submit to that. If she would not have a properly trained
leronis
meddling with her mind, when they would have sent her to a Tower, why should she submit to the crudely mechanical machines of these
Terranan
? She was relieved to see the man Kadarin rise and take leave of her with a courtly bow. Where had he come from, she wondered, what was his race of origin? He was not like anyone she had ever seen before.

She put the thought aside; she was to spend the rest of the morning working with Alessandro—Aleki, she reminded herself of his Darkovan name—preparing him by speaking of the background of the Domains, and elementary forms of courteous address among them.

They had been working for several days, in one of the smaller offices in the new Intelligence department, sometimes with the presence of the younger Montray—Monty—and sometimes alone together. Jaelle did not object to this; Aleki’s manner was completely impersonal; he never seemed to regard her as a woman, but simply as a colleague. Jaelle, nervous and suspicious at first, now felt almost friendly toward him.

Aleki’s first business had been to read through everything about Darkovan society which had been gathered by agents working in the field. Much of it was signed by Magda Lorne or by Peter Haldane, a fact which made it especially interesting to Jaelle; how much they had discovered about her world! Today she found him running through the account she herself had made of her trip into the Hellers, and comparing it with Magda’s account and Peter’s. As she came in he pushed it all aside and greeted her.

“But I do have some questions to ask you,” he said. “Before we begin, are you thirsty? May I get you something? It may be a long session—I have a lot to say. Coffee? Fruit juice?”

She accepted the fruit juice, and took a seat at the table across from him. He fussed with the console, fetching some sort of hot drink for himself, and brought it, steaming, to the table.

“All three reports I have here, as well as some of the others,” he said, “speak of wintering in Castle Ardais—am I saying it right?”

“Are-dayze,” she corrected him gently, and he repeated it.

“How is it that you, a Free Amazon—and I understand they are not very highly regarded in the society—were accepted as a guest at Castle Ardais, with Haldane and Lorne, and no questions asked? Is hospitality so open in the mountains as it is on Darkover?”

This man is very intelligent; I must not underestimate him
. “Lord Ardais would indeed shelter anyone homeless in his Domain,” she said, “but I was welcomed as kinfolk there; Lady Rohana is—is a kinswoman of my mother.‘’

“And you are related, then, to Comyn… for I understand the Ardais are of the Comyn? I do not entirely understand how it is that the Comyn rule all the Domains,” he said. She could almost feel his curiosity, a palpable presence, and cursed the unwanted
laran
which thrust itself upon her, not controlled or desired.

“Nowhere in these Records,” Aleki said, “is there any indication of how the society of Darkover took on such a feudal cast, or why the hierarchy called Comyn rose to power. Of course, what we know of Darkovan history is far from complete—”

“Most of us know little more,” Jaelle said carefully. “What records we
do
have of the origin of Darkovan society are lost in what we call the Ages of Chaos. At that time—” she hesitated, knowing she should not speak—it was the will of the Hasturs that no Darkovan should speak to the
Terranan
—of the heyday of the Towers and of the old matrix technology which had all but destroyed their world.

“About the earliest time of which we have much history,” she said, “is about five hundred, seven hundred years ago, when all these lands—” she touched the map he had copied, lying on the desk, “were divided up into a hundred or more little kingdoms.”

“It seems a small country to be divided up into a hundred kingdoms,” Aleki commented, and she nodded.

“You must understand, many of the kingdoms were very small; they used to say that a lesser king could stand on a hilltop and look out over his whole kingdom, unless a resin-tree had grown up that season to hide a half of it,” she told him. “There is a children’s game called ‘king of the mountain’—is it played on your world?—where one child scrambles to the top of a hill and the others try to push him off, and whoever succeeds is king—until someone else pushes him off in his turn. It seems some of the smaller kingdoms were much like that. I know the names of only a few of them—Carcosa, Asturias, Hammerfell. About the time of the signing of the Compact—surely you know the Compact?” she broke off to ask him.

“Isn’t that the law in the Domains that no weapon may be used which does not bring the user within arm’s reach of death?”

“That’s right,” she said, “It reduced wars to the minimum; and, as I said, about the time of the signing of Compact, there were a series of wars called the Hastur Wars, and slowly, one by one, the Hasturs conquered all these lands; then they broke them up again into what we call the Seven Domains, each ruled over by one of the Great Houses of the Hastur-kin; the Comyn. The Domain of Hastur rules over the Hastur lands to the east, the Domain of Elhalyn over Hali and the western hills, the Altons rule over Armida and Mariposa, and so forth and so on…”

“I can see the Domains outlined on the map,” said Aleki. “What I want to know is how they came to power, and why the common people should obey them so unquestioningly. If you are a kinswoman of Lady Rohana, as you say, then you are evidently akin to Comyn and must know something of their history and power.”

“I know no more than anyone knows,” Jaelle evaded, “and through all this land there are very few who have not some trace of Comyn blood. Even I, and I am, as you pointed out, no more than a simple Renunciate.”

She had begun to feel that this was some sort of testing, like a Training Session before she had taken the Oath. Again, all her hidden conflicts and loyalties were being brought out and explored. He persisted:

“I still do not understand why the common people should so unquestioningly do the will of the Hasturs.”

“Do you people in the Empire not obey your governors and rulers?”

“But our rulers are chosen from among ourselves,” he answered. “Though we still call ourselves ‘Empire,’ we are an Empire without an Emperor, and structured like a Confederation—do you know these terms? We offered Darkover full membership, with autonomous government and representation in our Senate by members chosen by themselves. Almost all planets which we occupy are more than happy to be members of a star-spanning Empire, rather than remaining isolated barbarians bound to their own solitary worlds. Yet Darkover has not joined the Empire, and we do not know why; we do not know whether it is truly the will of the Darkovan people or only the will of the Hasturs and of the Comyn.‘’

For the first time she sensed that he was being wholly honest, and that he was puzzled. After a moment she asked him quietly, “Was Darkover given a choice? Or did you simply come here, establish yourselves, and
then
offer us membership in your Empire?”

“Darkover—Cottman IV—
is
an Empire colony,” Alessandro Li said quietly. “You were colonized from Terra, many years ago. When we came here, we knew that; you had lost your history—perhaps within those Ages of Chaos of which you speak. The Comyn have chosen not to make this fact known to your people, so that you people may reclaim your heritage. Normally, local planets are pleased to have the resources of a star-spanning civilization.”

It was a temptation to repeat the arguments she had heard, against the Empire and against the
Terranan
, but how could she speak for Comyn? And if she did, Aleki might badger her for more detail than she felt able to give. She realized that this long explanation had been given in order to draw her out, to get her to speak unguardedly, and she withdrew carefully from the offered gambit.

“I personally see no reason for making Darkover just another of the worlds of the Empire,” she said. “But I am not privy to the mind of Hastur. The Hasturs have probably gone into the matter much further than I, and I for one am content to let them judge these matters.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer to have a voice in the decision yourself?” he asked her curiously, “rather than mindlessly obeying the will of a ruling caste?”

“I do not
mindlessly obey
the will of any man, be he Hastur, husband or God,” she flashed back at him. “But the Comyn have studied this subject and I have not had the opportunity to know all sides of the matter as they have. Piedro has explained your system of representative democracy to me, and it seems only a way for the decisions to be placed in the hands of those unfit to make them. Would you rather listen to the voices of a thousand—or a million—fools, or to the voice of a single wise man well trained in these matters?”

“I do not automatically assume that a thousand, or a million, of the common people must be fools, or that one who speaks for the ruling class must be wise,” he retorted swiftly. “And if the thousand, or the million, are fools, is it not the business of the wise to instruct them, rather than letting them remain ignorant?”

“You are making an assumption I do not accept,” replied Jaeile, “which is that instructing a fool will make him a wise man. There is a proverb which says—a donkey may be schooled for a hundred years, and only learn to bray louder.”

“But you are not a donkey. Why do you assume that your fellow commoners are not competent to learn as well as you?”

“I am not ignorant,” she said, “but I cannot see as far as the Comyn. I have no
laran
, and even if I learned as much as I am capable of learning, I cannot read the minds and hearts of men, nor see past and future as they can do. It is this which gives them the strength to rule, and the wisdom which persuades the head-blind to accept their wisdom.”

“
Laran
,” he said quickly, “what is
laran
?” And Jaeile realized a moment too late that he had led her into this debate, just for this reason—that she might speak, unguarded. She cursed the pride that had led her to enjoy sharpening her wits on this
Terranan
.

“Laran?” she repeated blandly, as if she hardly remembered what she had said. But he had, of course, one of those forever-be-damned
records
, the words she spoke had been recorded on to one of their wretched devices and he could listen over and over to what she had said, analyze it, know what she had betrayed.