Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

  “Almost all teenage girls are like that,” Ferrika said, “unless they have had an early and dreadful lesson in what conformity can bring on girls in this world. When Janna sees Cara a drudge to her husband she will be glad to know how she can escape that fate.”

  “I wasn’t,” Lynifred said, and Ferrika laughed.

  “Nor I,” said Lora. “Nevertheless I married when the time came, thinking it better to have my own house and kitchen than work in my mother’s. And even so, if I had married a decent man—though I thought my husband good when we were married.”

  “And so he might have been,” said Ferrika. “It is not his fault that he did as his father and grandfather had done before him. Be sure you raise your son better than that, to know what women need, and that women are human, too, and not slaves.”

  “But how can I raise my son to be anything at all?” Lora asked, finally bursting into tears, “when I must send him to be reared by Aric and turned into the very kind of man I most despise?”

  “When does he go?” asked Ferrika.

  “Day after tomorrow,” said Lora.

  “Why are you sending him? Why not keep him here?”

  “It is required by the rules,” Lora said.

  “Whose rules? Tell me, which provision of the Oath requires it?”

  “I have been told since Loren was born that I must prepare myself to give him up to his father when he is five years old—”

  “Yes,” said Ferrika, “so they told you at Neskaya. In the larger Amazon houses it is a solid rule, yes—many boys of fifteen or more living under the same roof with many women, would indeed be disruptive. But tell me, are your two housemates pressuring you to send him away? Some Renunciates wish to be free of all male creatures, including little boys.”

  Lynifred turned from the fire and said, “No; I told Lora to defy the bastard and keep the boy herself. Marji feels the same.”

  “What I truly wish,” said Marji, coming into the kitchen with Callie in her arms, “is that we could keep Loren, whom we all love, and send away Janna, who is turning this house upside down. I’m sorry, love; you know I love your daughter, but she’s driving us all mad, and if she goes Cara’s way, that’s no credit to a House of Renunciates.”

  “She’s right,” said Lora, sobbing. “Why do we have to send a harmless baby away just because he’s male, and keep that one because she had the luck to be born a girl?”

  Ferrika said, “Under most conditions, boys—especially tough street-reared boys—cannot be housed with women without trouble; I could tell you some stories—there was a time in Thendara House when we kept boys till they were ten, and the experiment did not work. Even their mothers were glad to see them go. It was not safe even for the younger girls in the house; and when we let the boys stay past puberty it was disaster. So in general conference it was decided that they should be sent away before five, and certainly before puberty. But in this, every house may make its own rules.” And she quoted the Renunciate Oath.

  “‘I alone shall determine rearing and fosterage of any child I shall bear.’ If it goes against your conscience to send him to his father, then, Lora, it is your duty to find a foster father or guardian for him who will not—as you said—turn him into the very kind of man you most despise.”

  “I thought it was part of the Renunciate law that my son could not live with me after he was five.”

  Ferrika smiled. “No,” she said, “you are confusing the law for all Renunciates, and the house rules of each group. In the larger houses it is established that no woman may be forced to live with men or boys; but here you may make such rules for your house as you all agree on. You might even make it known, so that some women who are considering leaving the larger houses because they cannot bear to part with young sons, could come to you here—”

  “It’s a thought,” said Lynifred. “If young men were to be raised by Renunciates, some awareness of what women really are and what men can be might someday go into the world outside the Guild Houses.” She drew on her boots. “I’ll take Loren out with me and teach him horse-doctoring, now he’s big enough to spend a day away from his mother.”

  Lora thought, Lynifred could raise a man better than most men could; certainly better than his father could. She’ll raise him to be strong, honorable, hardworking, and to understand that a woman can be so as well.

  “What will my husband say?” she asked.

  Ferrika replied gently, “If you care what he says Lora, you are in the wrong place.”

  “I don’t really care what he says,” Lora answered, “but I dread having to face him while he says it.”

  “I think we all do,” Marji said, “but we’ll back you up. I don’t think any magistrate would rule that he is more fit to be a parent than you.”

  “Send Janna to him,” Lynifred suggested, “and if a year of being a kitchen drudge, wash-woman, and baby-tender for her stepmother—and worse, treated as if she had no brains—does not send her fleeing back to us here, then perhaps she deserves to stay in that world.”

  “But I couldn’t bear to see Janna go back to that—” Lora began.

  “If it’s what she wishes, you cannot keep her from it,” said Marji. “Because we want this life, we cannot demand it must be for her.”

  Lora bent her head, knowing that Marji was right; Janna must be free to choose as she had chosen.

  “So,” said Lynifred, “we are all here; shall we call this a House meeting, and pass a rule that boys may live here, if the women in the house all consent, till puberty, and that girls reared here must live a year outside the house before they take the Oath? It makes good sense to me.”

  “And to me,” said Marji.

  Lora wiped her eyes and said, “I am not yet able to determine what makes sense to me. I am only so grateful that I am not to lose my son.”

  “And your daughter,” Marji said. “A year treated as girls are treated in, say, Neskaya village would no doubt have brought Cara back to us. Janna will be back.”

  “I hope so,” Lora murmured, but she was not so sure. Nevertheless, if Janna wanted that kind of life she could not be denied it. And if other women came here with their sons, it could be a beginning for a nucleus of men raised not to despise women. That was worth doing whatever became of them.

  “I agree,” she said smiling, and began to cut leather for a set of boots for Loren. He would soon need a scabbard for his first sword, too.

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  Knives

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Marna shivered on the cold steps as she heard the bell jangle somewhere inside the house—this strange house which she had never expected to approach. The sign, she knew, said that this was the Guild House of the Comhi-Letzii; but Marna could spell out only a few letters. Her stepfather had told her mother that there was no point in teaching a woman to read more than enough to spell out a public placard, or sign her name to a marriage contract. Her own father had had a governess for her, insisting that she should share her brother’s lessons. She swallowed hard, the pain like a knife at her throat, remembering her father. He would have protected her, when even her mother would not. No, she told herself, she would not cry, she must not cry.

  She wondered which one of them would open the door; maybe the tall one she had seen at Heathvine, riding astride like a man, her little bag of midwife’s supplies on the saddle behind her. I could have spoken to her at Heathvine, Marna thought. But then she had been too frightened, too intimidated. Her stepfather would surely have killed her if he had suspected . . . . She winced, as if she could feel his hard hands on her, the knife again, sharp at her throat. He had forbidden her to speak to the Amazon midwife, and emphasized the threat with heavy pinches which had left her upper arm bruised and blue.

  She looked around apprehensively, as if Ruyvil of Heathvine might come around the corner at any moment. Oh, why didn’t they open the door? If he found her here, he would surely kill her this time!

  The door opene
d, and a woman stood in the doorway, scowling. She was tall and wore some sort of loose dark garments and for a moment Marna did not recognize the midwife who had come to Heathvine. But the woman on the threshold recognized the girl.

  “Is your mother ill again, Domna Marna?”

  “Mother is well.” Marna felt her throat close again in a sob. Oh, yes, she’s well, so well that she can’t risk losing that handsome young stranger she calls husband. She’d rather think her eldest daughter a liar and a slut. “And the baby, too.”

  “Then how may I serve you, mistress?”

  Marna blurted out, “I want to come in. I want to—to join you. To stay here as one of you.”

  The woman lifted her eyebrows. “I think you are too young for that.” Then she noticed the way Marna was looking around her, glancing back at the open plaza, the main street running up toward it, as if an assassin’s knife sought her. What was the girl afraid of? “We need not stand and talk on the doorstep. Come in,” she said.

  Marna heard the great bronze hasp close with a shiver of relief that ran all down through her. Now she remembered the midwife’s name. “Mestra Reva—”

  “We do not accept young women here; you should go to Neskaya or Arilinn for that.”

  Neskaya was four days’ ride away; Arilinn was away on the other side of the Kilghard Hills. She had never been to either place; the Amazon might as well have told her to go to the Wall Around the World! She swallowed hard and said hopelessly, “I do not know the way.”

  And she had no horse, and any traveler she might ask to take her there would be as bad as Dom Ruyvil, or worse . . . .

  “How old are you?” the woman asked.

  “I shall be fourteen at Midwinter.”

  Reva n’ha Melora sighed, taking in the girl’s twisting hands; fine hands which were not worn with work; the good stuff of her gown and shawl and shoes. “We are not allowed to accept the oath of any woman before she is full fifteen years old. You must go home, my dear, and come back when you are grown up. It is not an easy life here, believe me; you will work very much harder than in your mother’s kitchen or weaving-rooms, and you have obviously been brought up to luxury; you would not have that here. No, dear, you had better go home, even if your mother is harsh with you.”

  Marna’s voice stuck in her throat. She whispered, “I—I cannot go home. Please, please don’t make me go.”

  “We do not harbor runaways.” Marna saw Reva’s eyes flash like blue lightning. “Why can’t you go home? No, look at me, child. What are you afraid of? Why did you come here?”

  Marna knew she must tell, even if this harsh old woman did not believe her. Well, she could be no worse off; her mother had not believed her, either. “My stepfather—he—” She could not make herself say the words. “My mother did not believe me. She said I was trying to make trouble for her marriage—” She swallowed again; she would not cry before the woman, she would not!

  “So,” said Reva at last, frowning again at the girl. Yes, she had seen, at Heathvine, how Dorilys of Heathvine doted on her handsome young husband; Dom Ruyvil had feathered his nest well, marrying the rich widow of Heathvine. But Reva had seen, too, that the swaggering young man cared little for his wife.

  Marna blinked fiercely, trying to hold back tears. “It began while my mother was carrying little Ran—Mother wouldn’t believe me when I told her!” she sobbed. “I didn’t want to,” she said, through the sobs. “I didn’t, I really didn’t. I was so afraid—he—he threatened me with a knife, then said he would tell Mother I had tried to entice him—but I never played the harlot, I didn’t—” She looked down at the tiled floor, trying not to cry. She thought she felt a gentle touch on her hair, but when she looked up, Mestra Reva was striding around the room angrily.

  “If what you tell me is true, Marna—”

  “I swear it, by the blessed Cassilda!”

  “Listen to me, Marna,” the woman said. “This is the only circumstance under which we may shelter a girl not yet fifteen: when her natural parent or guardian has abused her trust. But we must be very sure, for the laws forbid us to take in ordinary runaways. Has he made you pregnant?”

  Marna felt crimson flooding her face; she had never been so ashamed in her life. “He said—he said he had not, he had done—done something to prevent it, but I don’t know—I wouldn’t know how to tell—”

  Mestra Reva said something obscene, stamping her foot; Marna flinched.

  “Not you, child. I cursed the laws which say that a man is so wholly master in his own house that his wife and womenfolk are no more protected than his horses and dogs. Such a man should be hung at the crossroads with his cuyones stuffed in his mouth! Well, stay, then,” she said with a sigh. “It may make trouble, but that is why we are here. You walked all the way from Heathvine?”

  “N-no,” she stammered. “He came to market—he is drinking in the tavern, and I slipped away, telling him I wanted to buy some ribbons—he even gave me a few coppers—and I ran. Mother had made me come, she wanted me to choose some laces for her, and when I begged her not to send me with Ruyvil, she slapped me and said she was sick of my lies—” Marna looked down again at the floor. Ruyvil had boasted, on the ride in, that on the way back they could find the shelter of a travel-hut, and this time, he promised, she would like it and she would not need to be threatened with a knife . . . That was why she had taken this desperate step, she could not bear it, not again.

  Reva saw her trembling hands, the shame in her face, and did not question any further. It was obvious that the girl was telling the truth and that she was frightened.

  “Well, you may as well stay and have some supper. Hang your cloak in the hall.” She led her along into a big stone-floored kitchen where four women were sitting at a round wooden table.

  “Go and sit there, beside Gwennis, Marna,” said Reva, pointing. “She is the youngest of us here, Ysabet’s daughter.” Gwennis was a girl of twelve or thirteen, Ysabet a dumpy, muscular-looking woman in her forties. Beside her was a tall, scrawny woman, scarred like a soldier; she was introduced as Camilla n’ha Mhari. The last was a small gray-haired woman they called Mother Dio.

  “This is Marna n’ha Dorilys,” said Reva. “She is too young to take the oath here, but she will be here as foster-daughter, since her natural guardians have abused their trust; she may cut her hair and promise to live by our rules and take oath when she is fifteen.” She dipped Marna a ladleful of soup from the kettle over the fire. Mother Dio, at the head of the table, cut Marna a chunk of the coarse bread and asked if she would have butter or honey. The soup was good, but Marna was too tired to eat, and too shy to answer any of the questions the girl Gwennis asked her. After supper they called her to the head of the table, and the old woman cut off her hair to the nape of the neck.

  “Marna n’ha Dorilys,” she said, “you are one of us, though not yet oath-bound. From this day forth, our laws forbid you to appeal to any man for house or heritage, and you must learn to appeal to none for protection, and to defend yourself. You must work as we do, and claim no privilege for noble birth, and you must promise to be a sister to every other Renunciate of the Guild, from whatever house she may come, and shelter her and care for her in good times or bad. Do you promise to live by our laws, Marna?”

  “I do.”

  “Will you learn to defend yourself and call on no other for protection?”

  “I will.”

  Mother Dio kissed her on the cheek. “Then you are welcome among us, and when you are old enough, you may take the Renunciate’s oath.”

  Marna’s neck felt cold and exposed, immodest; she looked at her long russet hair on the floor and wanted to cry. Ruyvil had played with her hair and fondled the nape of her neck; now no man would ever say again that she had lured him with her beauty! She looked at their coarse mannish garments, the long knives in their belts, and shivered. They all looked so strong. How could she ever learn to protect herself with a knife like that?

  “Come, Marna,” said
Gwennis, taking her hand. “I am so glad you have come, there is no one here that I can talk to—I am so glad to have a sister my own age! The girls in the village are not allowed to talk with me, because they say my breeches and short hair are immodest. They call me mannish, a she-male, as if I would teach them some wickedness—you’ll be my friend, won’t you? I mean, you have to be my sister, it’s the law of the Guild House, but will you be my friend, too?”

  Marna smiled stiffly. Gwennis was not like any other girl she had ever known, and Marna’s mother would not have approved of her either, but she had always obeyed her mother’s rules, and much good it had done her!

  “Yes, I’ll be your friend.”

  “Take her upstairs, Gwennis, and show her the house,” said Reva. “Tomorrow we can find her some clothes—your old tunic and breeches will fit her, Ysabet. And tomorrow, Camilla, you can show her something of knife-play and self-protection before you are on your way back to Thendara.”

  “You must go to the magistrate for a report, Reva,” Camilla said, “for you have been at Heathvine and you know her family. You can tell them how likely it is that Ruyvil had abused this girl as she said. I met with that fellow Ruyvil when he was still a homeless nobody; I can well imagine he might use his own step-daughter foully.”

  Later that night, before she was tucked into a trundle bed in Gwennis’ room, Reva came in and asked Marna a number of questions. When Reva made her take off her shift, she remembered nasty things she had heard of the Guild House, but the woman only examined her briefly and said, “I think you were lucky; you are probably not pregnant. Dio will brew you a drink tomorrow and if your courses are only delayed by shock and fear, we shall know it soon. But I can testify you have been badly treated; a man who takes a willing girl does not leave that kind of mark. This is so I can swear to the magistrate that you have been raped, and were not, as your mother said, just playing the harlot. Then we may lawfully shelter you. Go to sleep, child, and don’t worry.” And Marna fell asleep like a baby.