The Saga of the Renunciates (51 page)

Oh, Camilla, why don’t you come back
—!

The door burst open and Keitha was in the room. She said briskly, “I heard her, and I’ve delivered enough babies to know what that kind of yell means. Here, let me—” she drew the shawl and chemise back. “Get behind her, Margali, hold her up—yes, like that, hold her up, that’s right.” Magda obeyed, numbly, not knowing what was going on; Byrna was sitting half-upright, her legs spread, Magda behind her, gripping her around the waist. Byrna arched her body, strained, howling aloud, as Keitha braced her knees upright She said swiftly, “No time to call anybody, no time to wait—I can manage.”

Byrna gasped and yelled again, her body arching with effort. She was babbling, but Magda could not understand the words. Keitha knelt before her, and out of the corner of her eye Magda saw something red, slick, wet, streaked with blood. Byrna’s harsh gasps and cries were blood-curdling; Keitha murmured something reassuring, and then Magda saw the wet, wriggling body of the child as Keitha lifted it, gently, tilted it head downward. There was a faint mewing wail, then the newborn baby began to scream indignation at leaving his warm nest. His. Magda could see the tiny folded genitals against the little body. Byrna relaxed against Magda, held out her arms.

“Let me hold him,” she whispered. “Oh, Keitha, give him to me.‘ ”

“He’s beautiful,” Keitha said, smiling, and laid the naked child on Byrna’s belly. He wriggled toward the breast, and Byrna guided him gently; Magda suddenly wanted to cry, she wasn’t sure why.

I didn’t want a child, she thought, any more than Byrna did. Yet she’s so happy with it now. He’s so beautiful, she thought, looking blissfully at the baby against Byrna’s body, and I could have had Peter’s child, and I would have been as happy as that—she felt her breath catch in a sob.

“Margali,” said Keitha, “Go and call Mother Millea. I would go myself, but I can manage the afterbirth, if I must, and you can’t.”

But Magda had not reached the door before Camilla came in, and beside her, heavily wrapped in outdoor cloak and hood, was Marisela, who looked at them and laughed as she took off her mantle.

“So you have cheated me out of a birth-gift, Keitha? Well, I have been up all night delivering twins; both born backward and I thought the mother would bleed to death. But they are both alive, and so is their mother, and they were both sons, so the father—” she made a wry face, “forced a double fee on me. So I am glad the hard part is already over.” She went quickly and washed her hands in the basin near the fire, then came and said, “Let me see. Well, you managed that nicely, Keitha; she is not torn, even though it came so fast? Well, he is not very big. Here, little man,” she said, taking up the baby and handling him in her expert fingers, turning him over, checking the cord, the stumpy little toes and fingers, putting a finger in his mouth to see if he sucked at it, swiftly inspecting nose, ears, the back of his pudgy neck, “Well, what a fine little fellow you are, every finger and toe where it should be.” She laid him down again at Byrna’s breast. “How do you feel, Byrna?”

“Tired,” the woman said blissfully, “and sleepy. And hungry. Isn’t he
beautiful
, Marisela?”

“He is indeed,” said Mansela. She was a small, competent-looking woman, her hair cropped in Amazon fashion, but she wore women’s clothing. She said, “I will send one of your friends down to get you some hot milk with honey; you are not bleeding much, but I will put something in it anyway, and then you will sleep for a while. And when you wake up, you shall have as big a breakfast as you want to eat.” She looked at Magda and said, “You are the new one, aren’t you? I forget your name—”

“Margali n’ha Ysabet,” Madga said.

“I am sorry; I spend so much of my time out of the house I sometimes do not remember you all. I remembered you, though, Keitha,” she said, touching Keitha’s cropped golden head, “Did I not deliver your daughter? She must be a big girl by now.”

Keitha’s face crumpled. She said, shaking, “She—she died just before Midwinter, of the fever—”

“Ah, Goddess, I am sorry!” Marisela exclaimed.

“I—I begged my husband to send for you, who know so much of healing, but he would not—would not let a Renunciate under his roof—”

“Ah, I am sorry, but I might have been as helpless as they,” said Marisela gently, “I am skilled, but against some fevers there is no help. But now you are here, and some day, Keitha, we must talk. For the moment, I am grateful to you for doing so well with Byrna’s baby. I must finish this,” she added, holding her dripping hands well away from her, exactly as Magda had seen Medics do in the Terran HQ, and bent over Byrna to check the afterbirth. “Camilla, will you wrap up Byrna’s little man?”

Magda watched Camilla’s long, callused fingers, tender on the child; Camilla held the baby, crooning, for a moment against her meager breast. How can a neuter, a woman who has no female hormones—and besides that, she must be fifty at least— appear so motherly? How, in any case, did a neuter, an
emmasca
, think of herself, of children? Magda could not even guess. She had always believed that this kind of motherly feeling was a matter of hormones, no more than that.

“Margali,” Marisela said, “Go down to the kitchen, and heat some milk; put honey in it, and bring it up here for Byrna, to have with her medicine, before she sleeps.”

Magda went downstairs, feeling weary; now she must stir up the banked fire and heat some milk! To her aching relief, however, Irmelin was already there, quietly moving around the huge stove. Rafaella was there too, dressed for riding, eating a bowl of hot porridge at the table.

“So Byrna’s had her baby? And now Marisela wants some hot milk and honey for her,” Irmelin said, kindly. “You sit down there by Rafi and have some tea; I made myself some when I came down, it’s poured out there. So Byrna’s had her baby— what was it? Boy or girl?”

“A boy,” Magda said, drinking the hot tea gratefully as Irmelin put the milk to heat.

Rafaella swore, slamming her fist on the table. “Hellfire! Poor brat, and she’ll have to give him up—Zandru’s hells, how well I remember that! There ought to be a better—hellfire!” She slammed out, leaving her porridge-bowl knocked over, spilling milk and runny porridge over the table. Magda stared after her, wondering what was the matter.

Irmelin watched her, sighing, but she came and mopped up the milk without speaking. She said curtly, “Drink your tea, Margali, and take this up to Byrna,” and her eyes were distant, her lips set. Magda sipped at the sweet milky tea, longing almost passionately for a strong cup of black coffee. Her head was aching, and she felt exhausted. She took the milk upstairs.

The baby, wrapped in blanket and kimono, was lying in Byrna’s arms, Byrna had been washed, her hair combed and braided, and she was lying with her eyes closed and peaceful.

“Let me put him in the cradle while you drink your milk,
breda
,” Camilla said, holding the cup to her lips, but Byrna clung to the baby. “No, I want to keep him, please, please—‘

Marisela told them to go and get some breakfast, saying she would stay with Byrna for a few hours, to make sure she did not begin bleeding, and Camilla sighed as they went down the stairs.

“Poor little thing,” she said, “I hope Ferrika will come here in time to comfort her before she yields up her child—I am troubled about her.” She put her arm around Magda, and said, “You are weary, too—had you never delivered a child before?”

“Never,” said Magda. “Had you?”

“Oh, yes—I could have managed, had Keitha not been there. Rafaella’s second son was born like that, and long before she looked for it; she had not counted her time properly and did not know she was within forty days of labor.” She began to laugh. “We were riding together near Neskaya Guild House: we had been on fire-watch. She barely had time to get her breeches off; the child was born into my hands as I bent to see if she was truly in labor. We wrapped it in my tunic and she rode home beside me!” The tall
emmasca
chuckled. “I have heard that Dry-Town women ride till the very day they are delivered, but this equalled anything I had ever heard!”

The smell of breakfast cooking rose up the stairs, but Camilla did not turn toward the dining-room; instead she pulled the house-door open. The street was empty and dark, snow still falling heavily, though the light was stronger. Magda felt lost in the world of thick snowflakes, lost, very alien in this strange world. She felt that if by chance she should look in a mirror she would not recognize herself. Camilla heard her sigh, and tightened her arm around Magda’s shoulder.

“You are weary of being housebound, I can imagine; but dark and dismal as the days are now, it would be worse to be shut up inside in the full summer. The time will pass before you know it. Look, there is blood on your tunic, and on your wrist,” she added, picking up Magda’s hand. “We have an old saying in the hills where I was brought up; if blood is spilt on you before breakfast, you will shed blood before nightfall. Are your courses due?”

For a moment Magda did not quite understand the phrase, which Camilla had spoken in the
cahuenga
vernacular; Camilla repeated the question in
casta
and Magda shook her head.

“Oh, no, not nearly.” The snowflakes, whirling up from the street, felt cold on her cheeks. Camilla looked at her, troubled.

“But you have been here more than forty days and you have not had them—
breda
, are you pregnant?”

Damn it, was everybody watching her so closely as
that
? She said in exasperation “Damnation, no!”

“But how can you possibly be sure—” Camilla’s face changed. “Margali! Have you taken a fertility-destroyer?”

Again, for a moment, Magda did not understand; when she did she thought that was probably the nearest equivalent to the Terran medical treatment which had suppressed menstruation and female function. She nodded; it saved argument.

“Don’t you know those drugs can
kill
you, child? Why do you girls do it?” Camilla broke off and sighed. “I of all people have no right to lecture you, being what I am… and beyond that danger forever. It has been so long, so long since I can even remember what it was like to be driven by those hungers and needs. But at times—when I think of Byrna’s face when she looked at her child—I wonder.” The deep sigh seemed to rack her whole body; but her lips were pressed tight together, and she stared impassively at the falling snow. Magda had wondered before; what could drive a woman to the illegal and often fatal neutering operation on Darkover; it would not have been simple even for Terran medicine, yet she had seen more than one
emmasca
in her travels. She did not speak her question aloud, but at her side Camilla stiffened and looked away from her, staring into the whirling snowflakes, and Magda wondered if the woman could really read her mind.

Camilla said at last, “Only my oath-mother, Kindra, knows all; it is something of which I do not often speak, as you may imagine, but you are my sister and should know the truth. I—” she stopped again for a moment, and Magda protested, “I did not ask—you do not need to tell me anything, Camilla—”

She does read my mind! How? Magda remembered, with a curious sting of apprehension, how at Ardais she had stood by as Lady Rohana and the
leronis
Alida worked with the matrix to heal Jaelle’s wound, and how she had found herself within the matrix, working with
laran
.

Camilla said, “Once I—bore another name, and my family was not unknown in the Kilghard Hills. My mother said,” she added, her voice flat and detached, “that there was Hastur blood in my veins; which means probably that I was festival-born, and not the daughter of my father. I was destined for a great marriage, or for the Tower, a
leronis
. My father’s freehold was attacked one day by bandits; they slew many of my father’s sworn men, and me they carried away, with some of his cattle, to be a plaything for them. You can imagine, I suppose, how they used me,” she said, still in that flat, detached voice. “I was not yet fourteen years old, and mercifully I have forgotten much.”

“Oh, Camilla!” Magda’s arms tightened around the older woman’s spare body.

“I was ransomed, and rescued, at last,” Camilla went on, rigid in Magda’s arms, “My family was concerned, I think, mostly that I was spoilt for a grand marriage. And a
leronis
must be—” she paused, considering and turning over words, almost visibly, “untouched. I was not yet old enough even to know that I was with child by one of the—animals who had stolen me. I remember no more; my mind was darkened. I am told I laid hands on my life.” Her eyes were distant, looking inward on horror; at last she gave herself a little shake and her voice was alive again.

“It mattered no further to my family what became of me. I was healed, but I knew I could never again endure the touch of any man without—horror. The Lady of Arilinn it was, Leonie Hastur, sanctioned it, that I should be made
emmasca
, and so it was done. For many years I lived among men, as a man, and refused to admit even to myself that I was a woman. But at last I came to the Guild House; and there I found, again, that womanhood was—was possible for me.” She smiled down at Magda. “It was half a lifetime ago; sometimes for years together I remember nothing of that old life, or who I was then. We should go and sleep; only when I am weary do I talk such morbid rubbish.”

Magda was still speechless, horror-stricken, not only by Camilla’s story, but by the frozen calm with which she told it. Camilla smiled again at her and said “My oath-mother Kindra said once to me that every woman who comes to the Guild House has her own story and every story is a tragedy, one which would hardly be believed if it was played in a theatre by actors! When I saw Keitha’s scars—I too was once beaten like an animal, and bear scars like hers on my body; so the story is fresh in my mind, and raw again.”

Magda protested, “Surely that is not true of all Renunciates, though? They cannot be all tragedies! Surely some women simply come here because they like the life, or choose it for themselves—Jaelle, she told me, grew up in the Guild House, foster-daughter to Kindra—”