Thendara House

  She was fastening the final tab on her collar when she heard Peter’s step. She could see, as he walked in, that he was very drunk. She shivered; once when Kyril was drunk he had tried to molest her and she had had to defend herself. To this day she hated drunkenness. But Peter only flung a surprisingly vicious curse at her.

  “Peter, what’s the matter? What did you find out from Montray? Where have you been?”

  He looked her straight in the eye. “What the hell do you care?” he said, and pushed past her. She heard the shower running.

  Part of her wanted to stay and have it out with him when he was sober. Another part did not care. She said “You’re right, I don’t,” knowing he could not hear her over the running water, and went out.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE

  « ^ »

  Magda moved slowly through the streets of the Old Town, Cholayna’s words still in her ears; she had promised to wait, to think over her resignation when the older woman could come and talk to her in the Guild House but she wished she had not. She wished she could flee back to the company of her sisters in the Guild House and never return to the Terran world at all. The effort to confront old loyalties again had taken its toll of her.

  After the half year free of the conflicts between men and women, even the most casual contacts between the sexes now seemed strange and abnormal to her; she found herself examining the least of them for nuances. Of course, that was what the housebound time was all about, to break old habits, to examine life rather than living mindlessly by old patterns laid down in childhood.

  She had half promised to meet Camilla at the women’s dance… was that where her loyalties now lay? Suddenly she was troubled again. She was a trained scientist, a skilled professional, what was she doing here, after a day spent in using the special skills she had trained for. Was she seriously thinking of giving it all up, going back to obey their silly damn rules, mucking out barns, asking permission to step outside the garden? She thought wearily that if she had a grain of sense she would go back to the HQ, put in for transfer—Montray had threatened her with it anyhow—and get right away from a world she desired and hated and of which she could never be a real part.

  Would she really be able to give up the Renunciates? Seriously, now, without worrying about things like stables and bathrooms. She had discovered a kind of solidarity which she had never known, a world of women. If that world was small and petty in many ways, built on denial and restraint, by women who thought themselves free but were bound in a hundred small ways, what life was entirely free? And there were amazing freedoms in that life. In all her twenty-seven years she had never found a world so near to fulfilling all her dreams and needs; could she leave it because it was not perfect?

  Who was the Terran philosopher who had written that since no man could be free, that man could be counted fortunate who could find a slavery to his liking? The Comhi’ Letzii, the Sisterhood of the Unbound, had at least chosen for themselves.

  As I choose…

  And there was Camilla to be considered, too… she had avoided thinking about Camilla, yet Camilla was one of the reasons, she knew, why she now wished to take flight

  Within a single day, in the sudden freedom of Midsummer, she had broken through her self-chosen isolation, first with Monty— and she was still not sure why she had done that, though it had seemed reasonable enough at the time—and then with Camilla. She had been astonished at herself—even now her mind shrank from confronting all the new things she had discovered about herself. But now she knew why she had fled, in panic, from Jaelle’s touch.

  I was not ready to know that. I am not ready now.

  Even now she could not identify herself as a lover of women, she could never embrace all the narrowness of women like Rezi or Janetta, who considered only women to be fully human, and considered the slightest contact with a male, even father, brother or employer, as treason to their sisterhood. Even Camilla was not like that. But she could not look down on the Rezis and Janettas either, knowing what she knew. And they were her sisters too She could turn her back on them only by turning her back on the Guild House forever.

  And she could not do that. They had accepted her, given to her, a stranger, all the sisterhood and friendliness and love she had hardly known how to accept. But now the housebound time was nearly over. Camilla at least must know her real identity. To any or all of the others she could lie, but Camilla deserved honesty from her. Camilla must know the truth, even if her love turned to rejection and revulsion.

  It was late; most of the revelry in the open streets had subsided, though in the public squares and gardens, she knew, the dancing and drinking and feasting would continue most of the night. Even now, in dark buildings and entry-ways, she could sense the warmth and sweetness of the night, where the four moons floated brilliantly overhead and couples enlaced, lovers for an hour or a lifetime, in search of somewhere to end the night together. Peter, she thought, this time without bitterness, and Jaelle. Magda turned her eyes away from the many couples and sighed. It seemed that all of Thendara was coupled this night, and only she was alone. She need not have been alone, Monty would have been happy, if, the troubles of this night ended, she had been waiting for him in his quarters. Then she need never face what was awaiting her in the Guild House, or at the women’s dance…

  I should have gone with Camilla anyhow. I never should have let Monty talk me into going to the damned Festival Ball. What is it to me, any more, what the relations are between the damned Comyn aristocracy, and the Empire?

  Surely this was the street and the house where the women’s dance was to be held? But the place was dark, locked, silent and forbidding, and Magda stared at it with dismay. What do I do now? Then she heard laughter and voices: down the street light flooded from the open doors of a wineshop whose clientele had spilled over into the street, and instruments were playing; against the light, shadowy forms were dancing in a ring-dance on the uneven cobbles.

  It was very late. At one table a knot of Guardsmen were gathered, some of them with women; at another, two tables had been pushed together and Magda recognized many of the women. Mother Lauria was there, and Rafaella, but she got up and went to dance with one of the Guardsmen as Magda approached. Camilla was there with a glass in her hand, and Keitha and Marisela in their working clothes, with the white coifs all midwives wore in the city, tied around their hair. Keitha raised her glass and beckoned.

  “Come and sit with us, Margali—it is lucky to be born under the four moons, and it seems that half the women in the city are eager to give their babes that luck! But any mother who has not dropped her burden by now is probably too drunk to go into labor this night—let us follow!”

  Magda accepted a drink from the pitcher on the table, and one of the young Guardsmen at the farther table came over to them.

  “Well met under the four moons, Margali! Do you remember me? We met in the winter past at Castle Ardais, and now I have taken employment here in the city—remember, we knew one another as children at Caer Donn, you had dancing lessons with my sisters—I am Darrell of Darnak; will you come and drink with me?”

  She smiled, letting him bow over her hand. “I am sorry, but my sisters are waiting for me—”

  He looked at her with comical disappointment. “All night I have traveled around the city looking for you. When you have greeted your friends and quenched your thirst, will you dance with me?”

  Magda hesitated, glancing at Camilla, who said, “Dance if you like, child.” She smiled up at Darrell, saying, “We are companions of the sword; may I offer you a drink?”

  “I think I have already had too much to drink, but will you favor me with a dance, mestra?”

  Camilla chuckled. “I do not dance with men, brother. But I am sure there are others in our company who would be pleased.”

  Marisela rose, laughing, and moved toward him. “I have been busy all this day, and have had small chance for merrymaking. But Festival Night must not pass without a
dance or two. If my sister will introduce me—I cannot dance with a man whose name is unknown to me!”

  Magda laughed and presented Darrell to Marisela who looked flushed, pretty, younger than she was in her blue gown; she pushed the white coif back so that her short copper-colored hair stood out in curls around her face. Darrell bowed and pulled her into the circle-dance that was forming in the street; Janetta pulled Mother Lauria into the circle, too, but Camilla shook her head as they gestured her and Magda to join them.

  “You look tired, Margali,” said Camilla, “but very pretty. How was the great ball? Were all the great folk of Comyn there? And the Lady Rohana? And Shaya, was she there with her freemate? What sort of man is he?”

  “Yes, they were both there,” Magda said, wondering how to answer Camilla’s question; what could she say to Camilla about Peter Haldane? “But Jaelle looked very tired, I think—she is pregnant, you know.”

  “Little Jaelle, with a baby of her own!” Camilla said, diverted as Magda had hoped. “Only a season or two ago, it seemed, I cut her hair for her and gave her her first lessons with the knife. I suppose she will return to the House for the birth?”

  Some of the partnerless Guardsmen had come up and asked the remaining Amazons to dance; it seemed that another, impromptu party was in the making. Some of the women danced together instead. But a few men remained alone at the table, with one woman—no, Magda realized suddenly, they were all men, what she had thought a woman was only a very slender, extremely young man, with delicate features, who had allowed his hair to grow considerably longer than most men; he had furthermore pinned it back in a way that suggested, though it did not actually imitate, a woman’s coiffure. And in this last group, Magda noticed a few Terrans. One was actually wearing the black leathers of Spaceforce.

  Of course. It made sense. At Festival, when all classes mingled without prejudice, it would make sense to certain men to get away from the Terran prejudice. In Darkovan Society it would not matter so much that they are lovers of men. Or even that they are Terran. Outcasts do not look down on other outcasts. She had seen one of the men on the spaceport that very day. He had taken her ident pass. She thought vaguely that he should have gotten himself Darkovan clothing, not come down here in uniform. Who was she to criticize, who sat here beside a woman who was her lover?

  Darrell, son of Darnak, had come back, and Marisela was thanking him for the dance. One of the more effeminate men had risen and said diffidently to Marisela, “I like to dance, but I have no sister and no woman friend. Will you honor me, mestra?”

  Marisela smiled acceptance. Of course; even at Midsummer men did not dance together in Thendara, except in the all-men circle dances. She wondered why. Why shouldn’t men dance together if they wanted to? Women could dance together, in fact, it was considered the most suitable thing for women in strange places! She was sure the young man would rather have danced with his friend at the other table, than with Marisela. She had seen them holding hands. But they couldn’t dance together. How strange, and how sad, that even on this most permissive of nights, men were still more trapped than women. She could wear, and as a Renunciate did wear, breeches in public. If this man wore skirts, and he looked as if he would feel and look better in them, he would be lynched. How sad, and how foolish, people were!

  Camilla asked, “Will you dance with me, Margali?” and Magda hesitated. She would have liked to. But she could not get up and dance with Camilla in front of those heartbreaking men. Darrell bowed expectantly and Camilla gave her a little indulgent shove.

  “Go and dance, child.”

  Reluctantly—she wished Camilla had forbidden her!—she moved away. It was a dance in couples. She hoped he would not speak of their shared childhood in Caer Donn, he had known her as the daughter of the Terran scholar Lorne, and she did not want that mentioned just yet. But it was obvious he had other things on his mind. He was a good dancer, but he held her just a fraction too close, and she would have refused a second dance, except that they were at the far side of the square and it would have seemed unkind. It was very warm; such unseasonable warmth in Thendara always predicted severe storm very soon. The smell of the air told her dawn was not far away. As the second dance ended she could see the musicians finishing their drinks and putting their instruments away. Darrell steered her into a darkened doorway and touched her lips. She did not protest, kisses at the end of a dance did not commit her to anything, but when he tried to embrace her, murmuring, “I do not want to end this night alone,” she pushed him away.

  “All around us, all men and women do honor to the loves of the Gods—”

  No. This was too much. Already this Festival had brought her more than she wanted of such matters, and she would not, she simply would not give herself to him here in the open air as some of the women were doing, scarcely troubling to shelter themselves from the eyes of passersby as they took the license of this night. She hardly knew this man. “No,” she said, pushing him away again. “No, I am honored, thank you, but no, really no—”

  “But you must,” he muttered, trying to nuzzle her bare neck; if she had known how drunk he was she would not have danced with him at all! His hands were hot and urgent on her bare neck and he was trying to fumble into her breast. She wished she were wearing her Amazon tunic instead of the Festival gown. She knew how to defend herself, but this man was a childhood friend and she really did not want to hurt him. She shoved him roughly away, but as his hands clung she followed it with a ringing slap which made him blink and stare at her stupidly.

  “You aroused me and now you refuse me—”

  She said in exasperation “I danced with you; you roused yourself! Don’t talk like a fool, Darrell! Are you honestly trying to claim I deliberately roused you? Why, if that were so, every woman in Thendara must go veiled like a Dry-Towner!”

  He hung his head, with a shamefaced grin.

  “Ah, well—no harm in asking.”

  She was glad to return his smile. “None. Provided you only ask and do not try to snatch unwilling!”

  “You cannot blame me for that,” he said good-naturedly and bent to kiss her bare shoulder, but she moved out of reach; she was not trying to flirt with him! Damn it, after all those months of isolation and celibacy, suddenly men, handsome and eligible men at that, were literally crawling out of the trees! First Monty, now this perfectly nice young Guardsman—if it had not been for Camilla would she have agreed to go with him this night? She would never know. Camilla was there.

  She could see against the shadow of one of the buildings, a woman in Amazon clothing—Rafaella, surely—standing in a man’s arms, so violently embraced that it was almost a struggle; both were fully clothed but from their movements it was reasonably obvious what was happening. She turned away, embarrassed, and went back to the bench where the last of the women lingered.

  Camilla yawned, covering her mouth with a narrow hand. “We must be away to the Guild House,” she said. “The moons are setting, and you and Keitha, child, must be indoors by dawn.”

  She chuckled. “I could stay out as late as I wished—but by now my only desire is for my comfortable bed.”

  The owners of the wineshop were now unobtrusively removing every bench as soon as it was vacant, stacking them, eager to call it a night. The Guardsmen who had been dancing, finding their seats gone, wandered away down the street. The group of women were still sharing a final pitcher of wine. Rafaella came back to where Magda sat with Camilla and Keitha—Marisela was exchanging a final word with a young man, and ended by kissing him in a motherly way on the cheek, so Magda supposed he must be a nephew or something of that kind. Rafaella’s face was flushed, her hair mussed, the laces of her tunic undone; she bent over Camilla and whispered to her, and Camilla reached up and patted her cheek.

  “Enjoy yourself, breda. But take care.”

  Rafaella smiled—she was a little drunk too, Magda realized— and went away, arms enlaced with the man who had been holding her. Keitha’s eyes were as wide as
saucers. Janetta leaned over from the next bench and said, “Bold creature! Such indecent ways cast shame on all Renunciates; they will come to think us no better than harlots! I wish we were still in the ancient days when no Renunciate might lie with a man, or her sisters would cast her out!”

  “Oh, hush,” said Marisela, coming back to the table. “Then we were denounced as lovers of women, seducers of decent wives and daughters, luring their children astray because we had none of our own! All women cannot live as you do, Janetta, and no one has appointed you keeper of Rafi’s conscience.”

  “At least she could do such things in decent privacy, not before half the city of Thendara,” Janetta complained, and Marisela laughed, glancing around the all-but-deserted square.

  “I think they are trying to get us to leave. But we have paid for the wine, and I for one will sit here and finish it.” She raised her glass. “It is easy for you to talk, Janetta, you have never been tempted in that way, and for the love of Evanda spare me your next speech, the one about the woman who lies with a man being a traitor to her sisters, I have heard it all too often, and I believe it no more than I did when first I heard it. I care not whether you, or anyone else, lies down with men, women, or consenting cralmacs, so that I need not hear them argue about it when I am trying to sleep—or finish my drink!” She raised her glass and drank.

  But I agree with Janetta now more than I ever did, Magda thought. Yet here I sit beside a woman who has been my lover, and for whose sake I refused a man this night. For that matter, Camilla had laughed and blessed Rafaella, and why not? She picked up her own glass, then heard a voice say, “Margali—” and looked up into the eyes of Peter Haldane.