The Saga of the Renunciates (77 page)

“So old?” Mother Lauria asked. Magda was remembering that Irmelin was one of the most bookish women in the House, spending most of her leisure hours in reading or sometimes in writing for Mother Lauria in her office, and suggested her name.

“I think she is too lazy, perhaps, too content with things as they are,” Mother Lauria said. “Three years ago, perhaps, but not now. Though if she wishes it, once it is made clear to her how much work it is, she might be given a chance. Certainly she is intelligent enough, and does not shrink from hard work.”

“What I would like,” Cholayna said, “would be a chance to administer one of the specific intelligence tests to all of your women… we have some very good ones which are not culturally biased, measuring only the ability to think abstractly and to learn.”

“That might be valuable to us as well,” said Mother Lauria. “Certainly there are stupid women, just as there stupid men, but the most intelligent of women can be taught as a girl that seeming stupid is her most useful skill when she is among men, and most of them are clever enough to learn to do
that
! The ones who cannot learn that, or will not learn it, are often the ones who come to us. But sometimes we have women who are even afraid to try to learn to read, because they have been taught so well that it is beyond their skills! How, in Evanda’s name, anyone can think that a woman who spins and weaves and grows food in her own greenhouse and supervises her servants, teaches her children, and manages all of a family’s resources, can be called stupid, I will never know! It is as if we should call a farmer, who can manage crops and animals at all seasons of the year, stupid because he knows nothing of the philosophy of the ancient sages! Women come here thinking themselves stupid, and I do not know how to convince them otherwise. But perhaps, if your tests were presented as games, and I could convince them that there are different kinds of learning…”

“Well, certainly we have enough tests, and people to administer them,” said Cholayna. “I am thinking of one of the technicians in the Psych department. She might be a good one to send here, not only for your sake but for her own—I think she could learn much from you. She is—” Cholayna hesitated; “I am not sure of your word—Magda, help me? One who has no sexual interest in men—”

“
Menhiédris
,” said Magda, using the politest of many words; ruder ones were used every day in the Guild House but she was feeling sensitive on that subject just now.

“She would welcome knowing that there was a place in this culture which would not despise her,” Cholayna said. “A good many of our cultures are—shall we say far from perfect? It would interest her to know how your society structures such things. She might feel at home among you, more than some others, if you think they could accept anyone from another world. As, perhaps, you have accepted Magda—Margali?”

Mother Lauria said rather stiffly, “I am glad you think there is something where we can teach as well as learn from you,” and Cholayna smiled at her with disarming friendliness.

“Oh, you must not judge us by our worst and narrowest, Lauria. It is unfortunate that our Coordinator is a narrow-minded man, the worst rather than the best, a political appointee who has never wished to be here at all. But we have those among us who truly love the worlds where we are assigned, and wish to share them. Magda, for instance—”

Mother Lauria’s face softened.

“Margali has been truly one of us,” she said, “and if there are others of your people who are like her—or like yourself, Cholayna—we would welcome them as friends. And to be just, there are enough of our people who are narrow-minded, who judge your people by the men in the spaceport bars, not your scientists and your wiser men. There are even some who still think your people sky-devils… For their sake, I think, Margali, it is time to reveal the truth; who you are and where you came from, so that when they speak disparagingly of Terrans, those who know better may say to them, ‘but look, Margali is one of them, and she has lived as a sister to us in this house for a whole year,’ and show them that their prejudices are foolish… what do you say to that, Margali?”

Magda felt dismayed; surely not yet, surely she could not yet face the sudden shock and hostility with which at least a few would greet her… and even as the thought crossed her mind it seemed she could almost see the hostile faces, the rejection where there had been friendship, the awkwardness when they knew she had won friendship under false pretenses…

Again Cholayna was taking it for granted that she would again agree to put herself on the line between the two cultures, that again she would choose to be in the vulnerable spot of liaison of her two worlds. How they would despise her when they knew! And Camilla, Camilla would surely hate her…

I never allowed myself to be vulnerable to any man as I have been to Camilla; always before I have been guarded, trying always to be strong and in perfect possession of myself. With Camilla it is different, and I cannot bear that she should judge me harshly, it would be worse than when I lost Peter. One of the reasons he left me
, she thought,
was because I was too independent and could not surrender myself and my judgment, and now
…

“Margali?” And suddenly Magda knew that she had lost track of the conversation, that both Mother Lauria and Cholayna were looking at her. She said at random, “What was that you said about Camilla? I am sorry, my mind was wandering,” and then she was frightened. How had she known they were speaking about Camilla?

“Are you ill, Margali? You are as white as a shroud,” Mother Lauria said, and Cholayna asked, smiling, if she had danced too late last night.

“No one is good for anything on the day after Festival,” Lauria said “This was the wrong time for this visit, perhaps, but you could not know that. All we said, Margali, was that Camilla is in the house and she probably knows the women better than I; when you have trained a girl in swordplay and self-defense, you know all her weaknesses. The same is true of Rafaella, but she slept out last night, Camilla said. Would you run upstairs and ask her to come down to us? Your legs are younger than mine.”

Magda was glad to get out of the room, and on the stairs she stopped, gasping, holding herself together by sheer force of will. It was happening again, once again it seemed as if she were like a spider at the center of the web, twitching everywhere and feeling the threads move, upstairs to where Marisela was awake and singing as she splashed her face with the icy water… someone is on the steps seeking a midwife, but how had Marisela known that? The same way that I know it? Lady Rohana called it
laran
… but she also said I had learned to barrier it, what has happened to my control? She could feel Irmelin downstairs in the kitchen, she could hear Rezi and two other women cursing as they struggled with barn-shovels; the very dairy-animals sensed the disturbances of midsummer, or was it only that after dancing till very late the inflexible routine of caring for the animals did not fit well with a hangover?
Keitha… Keitha is more prejudiced even than I about lovers of women, I was not the only women to succumb to someone I loved at Midsummer…

“In Evanda’s name, why are you blocking the staircase?” demanded a cross voice behind her, and Magda, shaking, drew herself upright to face Rafaella. She was still wearing her holiday gown, which looked strange in the morning glare, and her hair was mussed, her eyes reddened. It was obvious even to Magda how she had spent the night…
or am I reading minds again
?

She moved to one side, with a murmur of apology, but Rafaella stopped and looked at her, taking her brusquely by the arm.

“What in hell ails you? You look as if you were going into labor or something like that!”

“No, no, I’m quite well—Mother Lauria sent me on an errand—”

“Then go and do it,” Rafaella said, not unkindly, “but you look as if you, not I, were the one who had spent a sleepless night and drunk too much. Well, I don’t suppose we are the only ones; when you have done your errand, you had better spend the rest of the day in bed—preferably alone!” She laughed and went on up the stairs, and Magda, feeling her face flush with heat, managed to recover herself and go on up to Camilla’s room. The older woman was awake and half dressed; she heard Rafaella on the stairs and put her head out into the hall.

“So you woke the dawn-birds, Rafi love—was it worth it?”

Rafaella rolled her eyes expressively, then chuckled. “How would you know if I told you? But oh, yes—for once in the year! Now I shall go and sleep!” She disappeared into her room, and Camilla chuckled softly as she turned to Magda.

“Did you come to find me? I supposed that Mother Lauria and the Terran woman would send for me sooner or later…”

Is she doing it too
? Magda felt brittle, raw-edged as if she would fly into pieces; one part of her was seized by Rafaella’s much too clear surface memories of the night just past, he must have been quite a man, a memory of excitement, pleasant athletic competence, and she was furious with herself because the shared memory sent a flood of sexual heat through her own body, and now Camilla was reading her message before she delivered it. Did they all do it? It had never happened before, Camilla was red-haired, it was not impossible she had some Comyn blood; faded now, gingery sand-colored, but when she was a young girl she must have been bright redhead,
Tallo
, they said here, like Jaelle, but as she looked at Camilla it seemed that the gaunt scarred face slid off and what she saw was a lovely child, fourteen or fifteen, shining dark-red curls, a delicate arrogance, a sheltered child treated like a princess…

…
a lovely child, yes. small good it did me
, then a flood of confused memories tumbling one over the other,
a delicate child suddenly torn away from home into the hands of bandits, the roughest of men, repeated brutal violation, a plaything for the cruellest of them, from hand to hand like a whore, no, worse than a whore, not even a human being, beaten like an animal when I tried to escape… lashes ripping flesh from the bones
… Magda had seen the scars on face and body…
I cannot be reading all this
, but her own body was racked with the same, horror, pain… and then a flood of denial, dread…

“No,” she managed to gasp, “Camilla, don’t—” and again shame washed over her, how could she refuse even to remember when her friend had had to endure all this, when the memory alone was enough to make Magda retch…

“Margali!
Bredhiya
…” Camilla caught her as she swayed, and the touch brought another flood of the unendurable, intolerable memories…

Then, abruptly like a slamming door, they were cut off, and it was only the familiar Camilla again, saying gently, “I am sorry, I did not know you were—vulnerable to that.”

“I think—I am going mad—” Magda choked. “I am—I keep reading people’s minds—”

Camilla sighed. “I suppose—Jaelle has the Ardais Gift, a little; she is a catalyst telepath, and you are so close, she has perhaps awakened your own
laran
. And of course she does not know how strong it is; she has managed to barricade herself so well, she hardly knows she has
laran
at all. And of course I learned long ago to remain barriered, for months at a time I never even think of it; living among the head-blind, one does learn to keep barriers up. I promise you, my dear, I have never tried to read you, never—violated your privacy. A long time ago I made the decision to set all that aside. I have never turned back. This does not happen twice in five years. Forgive me, sister.”

“I think—perhaps you should forgive me,” Magda managed to murmur. The world was slowly coming back into normal focus, but it seemed that only the thinnest of veils guarded her from that unendurable wide-openness to everybody and everything.

“You have had no training,” the older woman said, “and I when I was a girl—after—” she moved her hand, unwilling to speak, and Magda knew what she meant, after the ordeal of which Camilla had spoken only once, after what she had read…
how can she live with such memories
?

“My family could never manage to forget,” Camilla said quietly. “I had to learn, or die. But enough of that, love—now we must go down to Mother Lauria. Margali, are you all right?”

Magda managed to nod. Once again she felt a desperate wish to lean on the strength of the older woman. She could not endure what was happening to her, and despite Camilla’s words she was not ready to admit that it was, in fact, happening.

She could hear excited voices at the door as she came downstairs, and Marisela’s gentle voice soothing the tumult.

“Yes, yes, I understand, my little ones—no, truly, your Mammy isn’t going to die, she is going to birth your little brother or sister, that is all. Yes, yes, I will hurry. Irmelin, take our little friends here into the kitchen and give them some bread and honey—things were too confused at home for breakfast this morning, were they not, girls? And you can look into the Guild House kitchen and see what it is like, you would like to have a look, wouldn’t you?” She made a laughing gesture at the women on the staircase, then her eyes met Magda’s and her face changed as abruptly as if she had been slapped.

“Ah, Goddess, I did not know—Margali, I know I must speak with you, and yet—” she pressed her hands, distracted, to her head. “I must hurry; in spite of what I said to the little girls, this is the woman’s fifth child and there is not much time to spend.” She came quickly to Magda and put her hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. Magda thought,
she knows what is happening to me. But that is not possible
.

“Promise me, little sister, that you will not do anything rash before you and I can sit down together like sisters and have a good talk, such as we have never had—I am at fault, I should have known better, but promise me, Margali—now I must go and get my bag. But wait, do you really need me as much as that? My duty to a sister comes first; shall I send Keitha to take care of this confinement and stay with you,
breda
?”

But already the overload of sensation and confusion was fading.
I am imagining things
, Magda thought, overtired,
I drank too much last night, and you can believe anything when you have a hangover
. “Of course not, Marisela, go along; look, the children are waiting for you.” The little girls had appeared at the door to the kitchen, their faces and pinafores smeared with honey. Marisela still looked uncertain.