But there were times when she woke in the night, held close in her lover’s arms, and realized that she no longer knew what she was doing, or who she was, or what lay ahead for either of them. None of the thousand uncertainties could be answered in words, or even asked; so she would turn to him in desperation, holding herself close to him, demanding the one thing she could be sure about, the one certainty they shared. She had ceased to be cautious. She no longer cared to conceal what was between them. She knew that sooner or later this would precipitate a crisis, but in some indefinable way she felt that even this would be a relief from the terrible uncertainty.
And then, one night, when she woke, she heard around the towers the soft dripping of rain and running of melting snow, and knew that the spring-thaw had begun. Now reality would close again over their enchanted isolation; and whether anything would remain, she could not even guess. She dared not even weep, for fear of waking him. She knew he would have only one comfort to offer, and now even that was no comfort at all, before the knowledge of the inevitable.
When I took the Amazon oath, I believed I had made it impossible for any man to enslave me. Yet here I lie, bound in chains of my own making! What can I do? Oh, merciful Goddess, what shall I do?
By the time the sun rose, red and dripping behind the fog bank, she had fought her way to calm, and was able to discuss their impending departure serenely. “I must cut my hair; it has grown too long here.”
Peter came and passed his hand through the silky strands, long enough now to touch her shoulder blades. “Must you? It is so lovely.”
“Nothing in the oath binds me to it,” she admitted. “It is custom, no more; to show, when we work with men, that we do not seek to entice them with feminine wiles.”
He put his arms around her, and held her close. “Must we part, then, my precious? I know you are pledged not to marry, but-is there no way, no way at all that you can remain with me? I cannot bear to let you go. Do you truly want to leave me so soon?”
She said, through the pounding of her heart, “I can remain with you for a time as freemate, if you wish.”
“Jaelle, beloved, do you have to ask if I wish it?” He held her so tightly that he hurt her, but she almost welcomed the pain.
She thought sadly, Have I come to this?
“Don’t cut your hair,” he begged, caressing the locks at the nape of her neck, and she smiled and sighed.
“I will not.”
He did not know, and Jaelle would not tell him, that Free Amazons who elected to remain for a time as freemate to a lover did not cut their hair; by custom, close-cropped hair was a sign among them of commitment to solitude.
She was dressed and ready before him. Since they made a point of coming downstairs separately, she started down to the small breakfast room. The sun, flooding in brilliantly through the stone-arched windows, would at any other time have given her pleasure, after so many dark days. Now it only meant the end of an interlude that could never come again. She might remain with Peter, but never again in such complete isolation, mutual self-absorption; the outside world would intrude, with other work, other commitments, and she grieved for the end of their brief honeymoon.
A hand on her wrist detained her; at a quick glance she thought that Peter had hurried after her, and smiled, but the smile slid off as she realized that the hand had six fingers, and simultaneously she recognized the voice of her cousin Kyril. So alike, so different. …
“Alone, chiya? Have you quarreled with your commoner lover? I should make a reasonable substitute to console you, should I not? Or did you turn to him because you so much regretted refusing me, when we were younger?”
She picked his hand off her arm as she would have removed a crawling insect. She said, “Cousin, we will all be leaving here very soon. For Rohana’s sake, let us try to remain friends, for this short time. I am sorry for all our quarrels when we were not much more than children; don’t torment me by bringing them up now that we are grown.”
Kyril pulled her against him, in a mockery of a kinsman’s embrace, and laid his cheek roughly against hers. “Nothing is farther from my mind than quarreling with you now, Jaelle.”
Shocked and angry, she removed herself from his arms. She said, almost in entreaty, “This is not worthy of you, Kyril. I am your kinswoman and your mother’s guest. Don’t force me to be rude to you!”
“And is your behavior so worthy?” he demanded, “when you put our whole family to shame with this bastard from nowhere?”
Jaelle struggled to keep her composure. “If he is truly a bastard of Ardais,” she said, “then the shame is in the misbehavior of his parents, and no fault to him. You were born Comyn, and legitimate, through no virtue in yourself. And as for my behavior-for the last time, Kyril, I owe you no account of my actions, nor any man living!”
He gripped her by the arms, his fingers digging cruelly into the soft flesh there. Through the touch her untrained laran gift-which she could never control but which, in deep emotion, thrust itself on her involuntarily-made her aware of his frustration and anger, and desire. He wanted her, crudely, sexually, and in a kind of intense, man-to-woman hostility that she had never known since-incredulously, she identified it as what she had sometimes sensed, without understanding, between her father and his women. It turned her physically sick; she thrust him away without trying to conceal her disgust. Her voice was shaking.
“Kyril, I do not want to hurt you under your mother’s roof, where I am a guest. But you have known since we were fifteen years old that no Free Amazon trained in self-defense can be-can be raped. Don’t put your hands on me again, Kyril, or-or I will have to prove it to you again, as I did then.”
She realized, in shame and self-disgust, that she was crying.
When-we-were both fifteen years old, Kyril probably meant no real harm; it was a game he was playing, a game of adolescent pride: a little kissing and fondling, just to prove himself a man and my master. But I would not play that game with him then, and I wounded his pride more than he could endure. And I made him an enemy, and he is still my enemy.
“You bastard bitch,” he flung at her, and his face was very ugly; the more terrifying because it seemed such a cruel caricature of the face of her lover. “By what right do you play the whore with this stranger, and then turn away from my touch like any chaste lady? By what right do you refuse me what you so freely give him?”
“You dare talk of rights?” Her tears gave way to flaming anger. “Rights? I choose my lovers, Kyril-and by what right, then, do you complain that I have not chosen you? I would not have you when you were an arrogant boy of fifteen bullying his mother’s fosterling, and I will not have you now when you have grown into”-she caught back the crude obscenity on her tongue-“into her unworthy son!” She turned her back on him, hurrying toward the breakfast room, knowing that he would never dare make this kind of scene before dom Gabriel. She was not overly fond of Rohana’s husband, but she knew him for an upright man who would tolerate no offenses toward a woman and a guest at his own table.
But Kyril followed close on her heels, gripping her from behind, his fingers digging into the bruises he had made so painfully that Jaelle cried out. “How dare you talk of my mother and your respect for her? It has not kept you from behaving like a harlot under her roof! Does my father know how you have shamed our kin by flaunting yourself in this stranger’s bed? If he does not, my girl, then I promise you he shall know at once, and then your precious lover shall account to the Lord Ardais himself for how he has dealt with his kinswoman!”
“I am not his ward; I am a Free Amazon, and by law I am mistress of my own actions,” she said, and again, with that frightening laran awareness, sensed that he took pleasure-an active, sexual pleasure-in the pain of his hands bruising her arms, in her uncontrollable sobs. She fought hard to get herself under control again. She would not; she would not feed that sick thing in him that found pleasure in her suffering. She said, breathing hard, but her voice calm and steady, “W
hat has Piedro done to you, Kyril, that you want to hurt him this way? Why are you doing this? I had thought you his friend!”
“This has nothing to do with Piedro,” said Kyril, and he was breathing hard, too. “He is a man; but you damnable Amazon bitches, thinking yourself free of all the rules for women, thinking that you can pretend yourself chaste ladies and demand that we treat you like chaste ladies, and then playing the whore when it suits you, flaunting your lovers-Zandru whip me with scorpions, but I will teach you that you cannot treat men that way!”
She turned her back on him, wrenching herself free of his hands, and went swiftly into the breakfast room. She was shaking so violently that she had to steady herself for a moment against the doorframe. Her heart was pounding, and the bruises on her upper arms, where he had gripped her, ached and throbbed. Magda was already in her place; Jaelle went and slipped into a seat beside her, nervously smoothing her hair. Magda, instantly aware that something was wrong with her friend, reached out her hand below the table, taking Jaelle’s hand in her own.
“Jaelle, what’s wrong?” she whispered. “You’ve been crying. … “
Jaelle clung to her friend’s hand, but she could not control her voice enough to answer. Do all men hate us that way? Can it really be true that all men hate us so much?
Kyril had come into the room behind her; he said, “Father-” with a defiant stare at Jaelle.
“Later, my son,” said Rohana. “Your father is very much occupied.”
And indeed dom Gabriel looked angry and upset, staring furiously at the factor who managed his estate. “No, damn it, man, I’ll not have it!”
“Lord Ardais, a thief is a thief, whether he steals copper coins or sarm-nuts!”
“Avarra’s mercy, man,” dom Gabriel said irritably. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that I should hang a hungry man who steals a few bushels of nuts to feed his sons so they can grow up to be my loyal servants?”
“If they steal nuts in one season, dom Gabriel, they will steal the trees themselves in another!”
“Then mark the trees you have ready for felling, and let it be known that any man who touches a marked tree will get a good cudgeling; and turn a blind eye when they help themselves to the downwood. If they cart it away to burn at their hearth-fires, it won’t be there to feed forest fire another year! That last burn cost us half a year’s profit in resins! But no more hangings, hear me? Or you’ll find yourself hanging there beside them!”
The man grumbled, “You might as well paint tip a placard at the edge of your forests, Lord Ardais: Open to every thief in the Hellers, come and help yourselves!”
“Don’t be a fool, Geremy,” the Ardais lord said. “No man can own a forest! My fathers have managed the lumber for centuries, and because they were clever at manufacturing resin and paint, and trading with the Dry Towns for sulfur to make book-paper, we have grown rich from the forests we did not plant! But I grew rich with the aid of the men who live there, and they have a right to feed themselves with the fruit of the trees, and warm their poor homes with the wood from the trees! The Gods hate a greedy man; and when I grow so greedy that I think I own the trees themselves, and the fruits of the trees, and even the men who live among the trees, then it is only a matter of time before these men take the law into their own hands and teach me the lawful measure of a man’s ambition!”
“Yes. But, my Lord-”
Jaelle looked at dom Gabriel and shivered slightly; his face was dark with wrath, and she could see that his hands were trembling. It reminded her, faintly but frighteningly, of what she had seen in Kyril. He shouted at the factor, “Not another word, damn it! If you want to work for a bandit, and grow rich, go ask Rumal di Scarp if he needs a coridom!”
“Well said, Gabriel,” Rohana said softly, reaching over to touch his sleeve. “But calm yourself. No one is arguing with you; we are all, I think, in agreement on that.” She stared at the factor. “Are you not, Geremy?”
“Yes, my Lady, certainly!” the man almost stammered.
Jaelle thought, Why does Rohana always try so hard to placate him? If he shouted like that at my table, I would give him shout for shout-yes, and blow for blow, too!
Magda saw Peter slide into his seat-he had come in while dom Gabriel was talking-and as he met her eyes, she knew what he was thinking. It was an opportunity given few Terrans, to sit at table with one of the Comyn lords and hear him expound his decisions. She knew Peter was making mental notes for a report in Thendara; so in her own way was she. But would she ever deliver it?
The factor had moved to the question of how to mark trees for felling when the thaw had progressed a little further, and the scarcity of ax-heads and saws in recent years.
Gabriel turned to Peter. “You have lived in Thendara; what do you know of the Terranan?”
Peter froze, saw Lady Rohana raise watchful eyes to her husband, but the question was obviously innocent, so he answered, “As much as any man in the street knows.”
“Can you verify a rumor for me? When they were here in the Hellers, back near Aldaran, I heard that they traded in metal from off-world; that the off-world metals were stronger than our native alloys, and would take a more durable edge. Is this true, or is it like the tales of men with wings for hands, and pots for breathing on their heads?”
“I have never seen any men with wings for hands, nor yet with pots for heads,” Peter said truthfully, “but I lived as a child in Caer Donn, and I have seen the off-world metal. It is good solid stuff, and can be traded in bars for forging, and as finished tools, and the tools are probably better than what your smiths can make.”
“Rohana, you sit in Council,” said the Ardais lord querulously. “Maybe you can tell me why that donkey Lorill has prohibited such trade?”
Rohana said soothingly that she was certain that the ban on trade was only a temporary thing, that the Hastur lord only wished the Council to examine the consequences of their world becoming dependent on resources not native to this planet.
Kyril interrupted. “May I speak now? I have a serious complaint to make, about a breach of hospitality-and decency! This man from nowhere, this nobody, has abused our hospitality-”
Rohana’s voice was sharp. “Kyril, I will not have your father worried with such trifles! If you have anything to say, then you may-”
“I was not speaking to you, Mother,” said Kyril, staring angrily at her. “Let my father speak for himself; I am weary of hearing you reduce him to a nonentity in his own household! Father, do you rule this household, or does my mother?”
Dom Gabriel turned toward them, and his face was red with an anger that made Jaelle tremble. “I will hear what you have to say,” he said. “But I will not tolerate insolence to your mother, my son!”
Kyril said, thrusting out his chin, “My mother, too, has failed in her duty, since she has shown herself powerless-or unwilling-to keep order and decency beneath this roof! Or are you unaware that Jaelle has been seduced by this nobody who calls himself Piedro, and that she has shared his bed from midwinter-night?”
Jaelle tensed, clenching her fists with mingled rage and distress. She felt Magda’s hand close gently over hers, and sensed the mingling of fright and dread in her friend, as dom Gabriel’s flushed face, red with rage, turned toward Jaelle. His eyes were squinted close, his mouth contorted.
He shouted, “Is this true? Jaelle, what have you to say for yourself, my girl?”
She opened her mouth angrily. “Uncle, I am not your ward-” she began, and Rohana said in a low voice, almost agonized, “Jaelle, please-”
The desperate dread in Rohana’s voice somehow got through to Jaelle; she said, more gently than she had intended, “All I can say to you is that I am very sorry to give you offense, sir. I would not willingly have done it.” She bit her lip and looked down at the plate in front of her, her hands shaking as she buttered her bread, struggling not to say any more. Rohana’s quick, grateful look was reward enough, but it could not calm dom Gabriel now.
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He bellowed, “Is this true? Have you made a scandal here in my house, with your love affairs?”
She swallowed hard and raised her eyes to meet his. She said clearly, “There will be no scandal, Uncle, unless you make it!”
Gabriel swung on Rohana, rising from his seat, turning angrily between Jaelle and Rohana. “What of this, my Lady? Did you know of this and say nothing? Did you permit your shameless ward to play the whore while she is under your care? What have you to say to this, Lady? Answer me! Answer me, Rohana,” he bellowed.
Rohana had turned dead white. She said in a low voice, “Gabriel, Jaelle is not a child She has taken the oath of the Free Amazons, and in law neither you nor I have any responsibility for anything she may do, under this roof or any other. I beg of you to calm yourself, to sit down and finish your breakfast.”
“Don’t you quote that filthy law to me,” the man shouted incoherently, and his face was so dark and congested with fury that Magda wondered if he were about to suffer a stroke. “Jaelle is a woman of the Comyn! I forbade you to allow her to join these female scandals, and now do you see what you have done? A woman of our clan, seduced and betrayed-” He actually raised his arm as if to strike Rohana.
Jaelle, in horror, rose to her feet. “Uncle! Rohana is not to blame for anything I may have done! If you are going to shout and carry on like a madman, at least shout at me!” she said angrily. “I am a grown woman, and competent in law to manage my own affairs.”
“Law, law, don’t you talk to me about the law,” Gabriel shouted, beside himself. “No woman alive is fit to manage her own affairs, and it doesn’t matter what you-law-” He struggled to speak, as if his rage had swollen his throat completely shut, got out a few words of gibberish, then clenched his fists, swayed and came crashing down on the table, shattering crockery and chinaware, overturning a copper pot filled with some scalding hot drink that flooded the table, drenching the cloth. He struck his head hard, seemed to jerk violently on the rebound, and fell heavily to the floor, where he lay with his body arching backward, his heels drumming the floor in repeated, convulsive spasms.