“She said—they’ll meet wi’ you at Nevarsin Guild-house.”
Camilla said, “But there isn’t—”
Magda kicked her shins and she fell silent. Calisu’ wrenched her arms free from Camilla’s grip, scuttled toward the door and was gone.
Camilla strode after her. She struggled with the ancient mechanism, which was rusted and could not be properly bolted shut again. Finally she sighed, and said, “Put some of the loads in front of it, so we’ll hear if someone tries to get in again. I was afraid this would happen. No, no, not you, you shouldn’t be lifting things with your head—”
“I seldom do,” said Magda, “that’s not my laran, I’m sad to say I have to use my hands.” But she stepped back and let Cholayna and Camilla pile loads in front of the side entrance. Camilla said moodily, “You heard her. What does it mean? There is no Guild-house in Nevarsin, it’s a city of cristoforos. How can we meet them when—”
“Shaya will understand,” said Magda. Her head was splitting in spite of Cholayna’s pain pills, and she wished that Jaelle would return so that she could go and have a bath and lie down.
Listlessly she found clean underclothing and thick socks, a heavy sweater and woollen breeches to sleep in. Jaelle and Vanessa came in; they had even washed their hair, and Jaelle’s coppery locks were curled up in tight, damp, frizzy ringlets.
“Just what the weary traveler needs,” Jaelle said, elaborately stretching her arms and yawning. “Now, when that meal comes—I saw it cooking; smelled it. Roast fowl on the spit, and mushrooms in a casserole with redberry sauce.” She licked her lips greedily. “This is a better place to stop than I thought. Go along, you three, get your baths. But don’t be too long or we’ll eat all the mushrooms. I wonder if this village makes a good mountain wine?”
“If not,” Cholayna joked, “I shall complain to the head woman.”
The bathhouse was an isolated stone building, from which issued wisps of steam. When they went inside, the bath attendant gave them little three-legged stools to sit on and asked with rough deference if the ladies had their own soap and sponges. She scrubbed them well, clucking at Magda’s injured arm, and even managed not to stare too long or too inquisitively at Cholayna. Then she ushered them down the steps into the stone-lined pool filled with steaming hot water. Magda sighed with pure pleasure, feeling the scalding heat drawing the pain from her wounded arm, and lay back so that she was covered to the neck.
“Feels good,” Camilla agreed, and Magda remembered that she too had hurt her ankle, though not as seriously as Vanessa.
“Are you really all right, breda?”
“Nothing hot water and a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. If I felt safe about getting it here,” Camilla muttered, softly so the bath attendant wouldn’t hear. “Careful, let’s not say anything serious, it may be her business to carry tales. No, I trust none of them, no farther than I could kick a statue uphill.”
Under the surface of the water, Magda sought Camilla’s hand and pressed the long fingers between her own. She was ashamed of how she had behaved in the afternoon. Had she really been willing to hurt Camilla’s feelings because of what Vanessa might think? Why should it matter? She sat holding Camilla’s hand, silently, and in the quiet comfort of the bath, she slowly began to pick her friend’s fear, her suspicion.
She could understand both. In the days when she and Peter Haldane, then married, had explored from the Kilghard Hills to the Plains of Arilinn, they had encountered their share, or more, of bandits and outlaws. They had had more than enough narrow escapes—although they had survived, when others had not. Those had been the days when the so-called “Lorne Legend” was in the making. Poor Peter, in a sense it was unfair; it might as well have been called the Haldane Legend, for he had done as much as she in the matter of gathering information about territories and boundaries, recording linguistic variables and social customs—all the basic information for Intelligence. The difference was that Magda had done it on a world, and in a milieu, where women found it almost impossible to go into the field at all, let alone accomplish anything meaningful there; and so Magda had gotten most of the credit and all the attention.
But Peter had had his reward: he had become Legate, and he was a good one, concerned, fair, committed to the world he loved. She had chosen another path, and different rewards.
“Magda? Don’t fall asleep here, there is a good supper waiting for us.”
“No, I’m not asleep.” Magda pulled herself upright in the steaming water, blinking. She felt almost dangerously relaxed.
Camilla squeezed her hand underwater, and said in a whisper that could not be heard inches away, “Z’bredhyi, chiya.” Magda returned the pressure and whispered, “I love you, too.” But because they were not alone, she turned to Cholayna and said aloud, “I suppose they are waiting for us, they may not serve supper till we’re all there. I suppose we should get out, but I could stay here all night.”
Cholayna looked at her fingers, beginning to wrinkle like dried fruit in the steaming water. “We’d end up a great deal smaller, I think.” She pulled herself to her feet, and the bath attendant brought a towel to wrap about her. Camilla followed, and Magda saw that in the hot water, the old scars on her back and side were clear white, standing out against her fair skin reddened by the heat. She saw the bath attendant notice them, and Cholayna actually opened her mouth to speak. Magda could almost hear her: In the name of the secret gods, what happened to you? before she realized that neither Cholayna nor the attendant had said a word. In the peace and relaxation of the bath, once again she was picking up unspoken thoughts.
Reluctantly, Magda hauled herself out of the hot, relaxing bath, and wrapped herself in the thick towel provided by the attendant. It felt wonderful to dress in clean clothes from the skin out.
“Now for some of that good roast fowl, and maybe the mountain wine Jaelle was talking about.”
Cholayna pursed her lips. “I don’t want to sound like a nervous foster mother, Magda, but if you really have concussion, you shouldn’t drink any wine. How is your head?”
Magda, though the hot water had relaxed the muscles of her neck and she felt much better, admitted that the headache was still there, a dull hard pounding despite the pain pills.
Camilla said, “She’s right, Margali, you really should stick to tea or soup till we’re sure about your head,” and Magda, inching her sweater over the throbbing bump on her skull, shrugged.
“I’ll have to make do with good hot food and fine company, then. Lucky Vanessa, she only bashed her ankle, she can have a hangover if she wants to. I really could use a drink, but I’ll defer to your medical knowledge.”
It was a shock to go out into the cold again. The fierce wind had blown the snow into deep drifts; they hurried across the narrow space between the buildings. In places the snow had drifted so high that it came up over their boot-tops, icy, chilling the new warmth of their feet. They were glad to see the blazing fire inside the barn allotted to them. The building was so large that it was not exactly warm, but at least they were out of the wind.
Vanessa and Jaelle had made the beds up, and the place looked clean and inviting, almost homelike; though it was hardly like their own homes, with horses and chervines stabled at the other end. An ample supply of hay had been brought in for them, which gave a clean healthy smell to the surroundings. Almost at once, serving women began to parade in with dishes and smoking platters; in addition to the roast fowl, there was a haunch of roasted chervine with its sizzling layer of good-smelling fat, and rabbithorn stewed in wine. There were long rolls of bread, hot from the oven, with plenty of butter and honey, a savory casserole of mushrooms and bland but nourishing boiled whiteroot, and the promised redberry sauce.
“Why, this is really lavish!” Cholayna exclaimed.
“It ought to be. Enjoy it. We paid enough for it,” Jaelle said, as they gathered around, sitting on piled-up loads and packs, digging in with a good appetite—all except Cholayna. The olde
r woman ate some of the boiled whiteroot, and tasted the redberry sauce with appreciation, but after valiantly trying to eat the piece of roast fowl Jaelle had carved for her, she turned pale and put her plate aside.
“What’s the matter, comi’ya?” asked Camilla.
Cholayna said faintly, “It looks—still looks too much like the—the living animal. I’m sorry, I—I tried. When it’s just a—a bar, or a slice, I can manage it, but—but this is a wing!”
“You need the protein,” Vanessa said. “Hunt out some emergency rations. You can’t make a meal on mushrooms and redberry sauce.”
“I—I’m sorry.” Cholayna apologized again, and found the load containing the packaged Terran rations. This was forbidden in the field, lest some unauthorized observer should catch sight of the obviously alien packaging, but Magda had not the heart to reprimand her; she looked so sick. Cholayna had had a hard few days, and she supposed that if you really applied the rules strictly, even the elastic bandage on Vanessa’s ankle would be against the laws of Intelligence work.
On the other hand, if the head of Intelligence for Darkover can’t break a rule when there’s hardly even anyone to know she’s done so—
“Never mind,” Camilla was saying, “have some of the wine, at least. It’s very good. They certainly aren’t skimping on us, I’ll say that for them! Shaya, tell me—there isn’t a Guild-house in Nevarsin, is there?”
“Goodness, no!” Jaelle laughed, raising her winecup to be refilled for the third time. “Keitha used to talk about starting one there, remember? There is a hostel where some women lived while they were copying some of the old manuscripts from the Monastery of Saint Valentine, years ago, but that would hardly count.” She frowned. “Why, Camilla?”
“There was a message.” She told about Calisu’, her earring and her relayed words, and Jaelle frowned.
“Rafi evidently thought it would mean something to me, but—oh, wait!” She broke off and said, “When we were girls, traveling with Kindra, there was a place where we used to lodge. It wasn’t an inn; women can’t go to public inns in the Hellers unless they are properly escorted by their menfolk. There was an old dame who made leather jackets and boots to sell—that was where I learned to make gloves and sandals, in fact.”
“Oh, of course,” Camilla said. “I went there once, and one of the young girls taught me to embroider gloves with beads! I remember old Betta, and all her wards and foster daughters!”
“She took in all the female orphans she could find in the city, and brought them up to work for her, but instead of getting them married off, as virtuous cristoforo matrons do with their girl apprentices, this old dame used to teach them a trade and encourage them to set up business for themselves. Some of them went off and got married anyway, but some of them are still in business and living in the old woman’s house, and others, old Betta sent them south with us to the Guild-house. Kindra used to say, when there was a Guild-house in Nevarsin, we should get Betta to run it for us. I think she’s dead, but four of her adopted daughters are still running the place, and Guild-women were always welcome there. Certainly, that is where Rafi would lodge.”
She drained the winecup, looked wistfully at the bottle, and sighed.
“Oh, finish it if you want to,” Camilla chuckled. “You can drink Margali’s share.”
“Yes, have it by all means,” Magda said; her head was spinning and she felt dizzy, though she had not even touched the wine. Jaelle resolutely pushed it away.
“I would have a head worse than hers tomorrow if I drank any more, already I’m falling asleep where I sit. Let’s get to bed.”
And in fact the dishes were all but empty; the bones of the roast fowl were scattered, only a few scraps of gravy remaining on the platter which had held the roast chervine. After the fatigue of the day, the bath and the heavy meal, Magda was sure they would sleep well tonight. Her head still throbbed, and she wobbled when she got up to go to her sleeping bag.
Camilla protested. “Aren’t we going to set watch?”
Vanessa yawned hugely. “Not I. An offense to these good people’s hospitality. I’m going to—” Another vast yawn split her words. “Sleep.”
Jaelle, drawing off her boots, looked up seriously at Camilla. “Truly, do you think we should set a watch, aunt?” She used the old affectionate word of her childhood, and it made Camilla smile; but the other woman said, “Truly, I do. Even if most of these people are good, trustworthy and hospitable, it is possible there are rogues among them. I will stand first watch myself.”
“I will let you, then,” Jaelle said, and went to crawl into her sleeping bag. Almost before the others had their boots off, she was fast asleep and snoring. Magda thought, She must be even more tired than we realized. Of course all the weight of the trip has been on her. I must try to bear more of the responsibility.
She felt so dizzy, her head pounding, that she asked Cholayna for another of the pain pills, and Cholayna gave it to her, rather reluctantly. “You really should not. After a bath and a meal like that one, I am sure you will sleep well enough without it.”
“I won’t take it unless I find I cannot sleep,” Magda promised. Cholayna pulled off her boots, wrapped her pale halo of hair into a crimson scarf, and crept into her sleeping bag. Camilla, yawning, settled down on one of the loads, her knife across her knees.
Vanessa lowered the light of the lantern to its lowest point. “Camilla, wake me after an hour or so. You need sleep, too. We should try to make an early start.”
“In this?” Camilla gestured, and in the silence they could hear the rattle of snow blowing against the frame of the building and the wind howling around the corners. “We’ll be lucky to get out of here by day after tomorrow.”
“Well, maybe it will stop during the night.”
“Maybe Durraman’s donkey could really fly. Go to sleep, Vanessa. I’ll watch for a few hours, at least.”
Vanessa’s sleeping bag—now that they were not in the wilds, they were using the Terran single bags rather than the doubled ones from the Guild-House—was spread next to Magda’s. After a moment, Vanessa asked softly, “Are you asleep?”
“Not nearly. I thought I’d fall asleep right away, but my head really aches. I think I’m going to take Cholayna’s pill after all.”
“Miss Lorne—may I ask you something? Something really personal?”
“Of course,” Magda said, “but only if you stop calling me Miss Lorne. Vanessa, we are sisters of the Guild-house. What would please me most would be if you would call me Margali. It really is my name, you know, it’s not just an alias, or the name I use in the field. My parents named me Margali. I was born on Darkover, in these mountains; though I’ve been away from them for a long time. No one ever called me Magdalen till I went to the Intelligence Academy on Alpha. I worked so long for the HQ that I’m quite used to Magda now, but I really prefer Margali.”
“Margali, then. I—I have some trouble understanding women as freemates. Jaelle is your freemate, yes? But you and Camilla—”
“Camilla is my lover, yes,” said Magda deliberately. “The Oath of Freemates is something else. Jaelle and I swore that oath, which is legal for women, so that we could be guardians of one another’s children. Jaelle and I—perhaps no one brought up under Terran laws could understand. We have been lovers, too; but Camilla and I—I said you wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t. I would like to understand. What—what is it like, to love a woman?”
Magda laughed. “What is it like to love? To love anyone?”
Vanessa was asleep at her side. Jaelle still snored softly; she had, Magda reflected, drunk far too much. Cholayna, though coughing a little, was fast asleep. But Magda could not sleep, though she felt as sick and dizzy as if she had finished the bottle of wine herself. She wanted to take Cholayna’s pill, but was restrained by the thought that if her concussion was serious, she probably should not. From where she lay, she could see Camilla, the long knife resting across her knees; but ev
en as she watched, Camilla’s head sagged forward; she started, pulled herself upright with a jerk—then sagged again, asleep.
And suddenly, as if she had read it printed in letters of fire, Magda knew. She never knew whether it was laran or something else, but she knew.
The wine had been drugged. And probably some of the food as well.
Cholayna didn’t eat much of their food. She may not be drugged. I should wake her at once and tell her.
But Magda could not make herself move, feeling sicker and dizzier than ever. She thought, in terror, I am drugged too! She tried to force herself to move, to wake, to scream out to Camilla, to Cholayna.
But she could not move.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
« ^ »
Magda fought against the sluggishness of her brain, struggling to move. She tried to reach out with laran to Jaelle—Shaya, wake up, we have been drugged, it’s a trap, Camilla was right! She tried to pull herself upright, to crawl over to her freemate and shake her from her drugged and drunken sleep; Jaelle had drunk more of the drugged wine than any of them.
And no wonder. She has carried the fullest weight of this trip, all the way, and now when she has relaxed, now that she will let herself sleep, I may not be able to wake her at all.
Jaelle was probably so deeply drunk and drugged as to be unrousable. If she could reach Camilla, though, and waken her… Magda fought against her weakness and dizziness, her throbbing head and sickness, concentrating on the pain. She gave thanks to the Goddess that she had not swallowed Cholayna’s last sleeping pill, or she would now be sleeping alongside her drugged friends; and the folk of this village would be able to come and steal their loads, and perhaps cut their throats, at their leisure… or whatever else they might have in mind.
Cholayna had drunk little of the drugged wine, eaten almost none of the food. She might be the easiest to rouse… Magda tried to raise her head, clench her fists, anything. Pain lanced through her forehead like blinding knives, but she did force her head a little up from the packload which served her as pillow. Bracing herself with her hands, feeling so sick she was sure she would vomit, she managed to pull herself up inch by inch to a sitting position.