Thendara House

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Now, hungry after her day in the barn, she still found the food hard to get down; it was some kind of meat, or more likely, entrails, stewed with coarse-ground meal, and flavored with a highly spiced sauce; the bread was dark, coarse and unleavened, and there was some stewed fruit in honey which might have been tolerable if it had been chilled, but which was served warm. She was accustomed to Darkovan foods, and liked most of them, but by unlucky chance, the foods tonight were all new to her and distasteful; she nibbled at buttered bread, pushed the stew around on her plate, and longed, angrily and hopelessly, for a good cup of coffee. She had been trained, in Intelligence, to eat any kind of alien food without protest or visible distaste, and usually she managed it, but tonight she felt exhausted and let down. Could she really endure a half year here, among these strange women and in these uncomfortable conditions?

  She sat in her place next to Doria; across the table was the elderly emmasca, Camilla, who had witnessed her oath, and beyond her was the new woman, Keitha. Today she looked better, with some color in her cheeks, and her bright hair, roughly hacked off for the oath-taking, had been neatly trimmed around her neck. She was wearing Amazon clothing which looked shabby and much-worn; probably from the same castoff-box as Magda’s own. She still seemed shy and lost and ate little.

  Camilla’s gaunt face was kind with concern.

  “But you are eating nothing, Margali—don’t you like the tripe stew?”

  “Oh, is that what it is?” Magda took another forkful and wished she hadn’t. “It’s very good,” she lied, “but I’m not very hungry tonight.” She took another piece of bread and buttered it. At least she could eat the bread, and with the warm stewed fruit on it, it wasn’t too bad.

  Mother Lauria rapped with a glass for silence. “Training Session tonight,” she said. “It is compulsory for all new sisters and for everyone who has been oath-bound for less than three years, and everyone, of course, is welcome. The Sisterhood is meeting in the Music Room tonight, so Training Session will be in the armory.”

  There was a loud and audible groan. “Everybody remember to bring your extra shawls,” somebody grumbled, “It’s freezing down there!”

  “We’ll put the mats down for you to sit on,” Rafaella said. “And a little cold won’t hurt you! It keeps you alert so you won’t go to sleep, as you might otherwise after a heavy supper!”

  Magda whispered to Doria as they left the dining room, “What is the Sisterhood?”

  “It’s a secret society,” Doria whispered back, “It links the Guild Houses together, that’s all I really know about it, and most of the women who belong to it are healers or midwives; Marisela belongs. They’re sworn to secrecy about it and they never tell.”

  Camilla came and linked her arm through Magda’s as they went downstairs toward the armory. “I thought Jaelle was taking you to Neskaya. Why are you here? I heard that Jaelle was back for a night or two, but I had no chance to speak to her; I saw the scar on her cheek, though. What happened?”

  “She and I were attacked by bandits.” Magda said. “We spent the winter at Ardais; she was too ill to travel. Then we came here to Thendara—”

  “Well, it is not surprising, that she should want her oath-daughter in her own house,” said Camilla. She drew Magda after her into the Armory, where women were dragging the mats into a close circle. Camilla tossed Magda a blanket.

  “You are cold, I can see, even with your shawl; wrap up in this,” she said.

  Mother Lauria said, “My sisters, all of you have seen the new ones among us; it is many years since we have had as many as three to be trained together. You all know Doria; Rafaella has done what each of us hopes to do some day, brought a grown daughter or fosterling to take the Oath from her hands. Now it is time for you to know Margali n’ha Ysabet, who took the Oath at the hands of Jaelle n’ha Melora last winter, and Keitha n’ha Casilda, who took oath from Camilla n’ha Kyna here in this house four days ago. Camilla, you are oath-mother to one of these and oath-sister to the other; will you lead us in the first round tonight?”

  “With pleasure,” said Camilla, “Doria, you have not yet taken oath, though you have lived among us all your life. Why do you want to take the Renunciate’s Oath?”

  Doria smiled and said confidently, “Because I was brought up among you; it is my home, and will please my foster mother.”

  Rafaella said quickly, “That is not a good reason. Doria, did I ever ask or require of you, as a condition of my love, that you should become an Amazon?”

  Doria blinked, confused, but she said, “No, but I knew you wished—”

  “But what was your reason?” asked Camilla, “Yours, not Rafi’s.”

  “Because—well, really, because—I have lived here all my life, and I wanted to be really one of you—not just a fosterling here—but a real Amazon—”

  Irmelin asked, “Were you afraid that if you did not take the Oath you would have nowhere to go?”

  “That’s not fair,” Doria said shakily, but Irmelin insisted. “Tell me. If we refused to take your oath, what would you do?”

  “But you aren’t going to do that, are you?” Doria protested, “I’ve lived here all my life, I’ve just expected to take the Oath when I was fifteen—” She looked shocked and afraid.

  “Just tell us,” Irmelin said. “If we refuse you the oath, where will you go? What will you do?”

  “I suppose—I don’t know—back to my birth-mother, I suppose, if she will have me—I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Doria cried, and burst into tears. Camilla shrugged, and turned to Keitha.

  “You. Why did you come here, Keitha?”

  “Because my husband beat and ill-treated me, and I could bear no more—and I had heard a woman could take refuge here—”

  “How long had you been married?” Magda recognized the speaker as the heavily pregnant Byrna.

  “Seven years.”

  “And had your husband beaten you before this?”

  “Y—yes,” Keitha said shakily.

  Byrna made a wry face. “If you had endured his beatings before this, why did you suddenly choose to endure no more? Why did you not try to arrange your life in such a way that you need not endure his beatings and abuse, rather than running away?”

  “I—I tried—”

  “And so, when your feminine wiles could not soften his heart, you ran away because you had failed as a wife?” asked a woman whose name Magda did not know, “Do you think we are a refuge for any woman who cannot manage her husband?”

  Keitha lifted blazing gray eyes and said, “You did take me in! Why did you not ask me all of this before I took Oath then?”

  There was an odd little murmur around the circle, and Magda recognized it, with surprise, as approval. Camilla nodded as if Keitha had scored a point, and asked her, “What form of marriage did you have? Freemate, or catenas!”

  “We were married di catenas,” Keitha confessed. Magda remembered; this was the most formal kind of marriage, where the catenas or marriage-bracelets were locked on the arms of both parties, and the marriage was difficult to dissolve in law.

  “Then you were oath-bound,” said Camilla. “What do you think of the proverb which says that one who is false to her first oath will be false to her second?”

  Keitha stared rebelliously at Camilla. Her eyes were reddened and a tear was trickling from the corner of one eye, but she said clearly, “I think it nonsense; for your proberb I offer you another; an oath broken by one does not thereafter bind the other. My husband vowed when we were bound by the catenas that he would care for me and cherish me; but I had nothing from him but abuse and vile language and of late, beatings till I feared for my life. He had violated his oath many times; at last I chose to consider that, in breaking it, he had released me from observing it.” She swallowed hard and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but she stared defiantly at the women, and Camilla, at last, nodded.

  “So be it. Margali, tell us why you wished to become an Amaz
on?”

  Magda was suddenly grateful that she had been the third one interrogated; she realized that the point of the procedure was to put the questioned one on the defensive, and force her to justify herself. She said clearly, “I did not, at first, wish to become an Amazon; I was forced to take the oath since I had been found wearing Amazon—Renunciate garb and impersonating one of you.”

  “And what were you doing running around in Amazon garments?” asked Rafaella.

  Magda said, “I knew that no man would molest a Free Amazon; I did not want to create a scandal or expose myself to insult while traveling alone.”

  “Tell us,” said Rafaella, “Did you feel it right to take advantage, unearned, of an immunity which other women had won at the point of their knives, and earned by years of renunciation?”

  The hostility in her voice made Magda cringe, but she kept her own words steady.

  “I knew too little of your ways to consider whether it was right or wrong. Lady Rohana made the suggestion—that I travel as a Free Amazon—but I myself will take responsibility for what happened.“

  “And why did you later abide your oath?” asked a woman Magda did not know. “Since you have taken it under what were really false pretenses, why did you not petition the Guild Mothers to have it set aside?”

  Magda glanced at Mother Lauria, impassive, wrapped in heavy shawl and cloak, across the circle. Surely she would say something? But she did not meet Magda’s eyes. Magda drew a breath, trying to form her words in such a way that they would convey her meaning without revealing what she had sworn never to reveal while she was in the Guild House. She could not explain that she felt this the best way to serve her two worlds, building a bridge between Terran and Darkovan; and that somehow she must free herself from the fetters of custom which prevented women from doing anything very important on Darkover. Finally she said, “I felt it wrong to break an oath I had sworn. And since I had no commitment elsewhere—”

  That was not really true. She had sworn the Service oath. Yet in this way she could better serve as a Terran agent, and serve, too, the world she had chosen as her own.

  “Commitment!” One of the women pounced on that at once. “Do you think we are simply a place for idle women who have nothing else to do? Why do you think you have anything to give us, in return for the protection of the Guild House and your sisters?”

  “I am not sure,” Magda said, struggling to keep her calm, “but maybe you can help me to find out what I have to give.”

  Camilla said, “That is a good answer,” but her words were almost drowned out by Rafaella’s hostile voice:

  “Don’t you think we have anything better to do than to teach ignorant women what they want out of life?”

  Magda felt anger stirring in her, and was glad. If she was angry enough, perhaps she would not cry. “No, I don’t,” she said sharply, “If you did, you would be doing it, not sitting here trying to make us angry!”

  There was an outburst of laughter all around the circle, and small sounds of approval. I was right, Magda thought, that is what they are trying to do; probably because Darkovan women are taught to be so submissive. They want us to think, question our own motives, defend them. The one thing they do not want us to do is to sit here meekly and accept what we are told.

  Mother Lauria said “Keitha brought jewels and tried to make a gift of them to the House. Do you know why they were refused, Keitha?”

  “No, I don’t,” said the fair-haired woman. She moved restlessly where she sat; Magda wondered if her back was still raw with the dreadful wounds of her beating. “I could understand why you refused, if they had been my husband’s gifts to me. But they were a part of my dower property from my own mother; why am I not free to give them to you? Should I give them to my husband? And I have—” suddenly her voice wobbled, though she tried to hold it steady, “I have—now—no daughter to whom I might give them.”

  Mother Lauria said, “First, because no woman can buy a place here. I am sure you had no thought of it; but if we accepted gifts, there might some day be a difference made between the few women who can pay, and the many who can bring nothing. Early in our history, we asked women to bring a dowry if they were able; and we were accused of luring rich women to us, for the sake of their dowries. Also, none of us is perfect; if we allowed such gifts we might be lured into accepting some woman not fit for the life, out of greed for her riches. So it is our first rule; no woman may bring anything to us when she enters here except the clothing she stands in. the skill of her hands, and the furnishing of her brain and mind.” She smiled and added, “That, and a more precious gift; her unknown self, that part of herself which she has never learned to use…”

  She went on, but Magda did not hear; suddenly it was as if a voice had whispered in her mind:

  Sisters, join hands and let us stand together before the Goddess…

  Before Magda’s eyes a vision suddenly appeared, as clearly as if the circle of women seated on the armory mats had vanished; it bore the form of a woman, but taller than womankind; clothed in the gray and starry robes of the night, gems sparkling in her dark hair, and her face seemed to look upon Magda with divine compassion and tenderness. My daughters, what do you seek… ?

  In confusion, Magda wondered, is this some new test they have arranged for us? But across the circle she could still hear Mother Lauria saying to Byrna, “You may be excused if you are weary, child,” and Byrna, shifting her weight uncomfortably, replying, “No, please—this is the only chance I get to be with all of you!”

  Magda could still see, faintly, the shimmering form—but was it inside her mind, a vision, or was it real, standing before her in the circle? She blinked and it was gone. Had it ever been there?

  Magda wondered if she were going mad. Next, she thought grimly, I shall be hearing voices telling me I am to be the new women’s Messiah!

  Rafaella had evidently been asked to lead the next round of questioning, and Magda shrank inside. Rafaella had been consistently unfriendly. She had heard only half or less of the question;

  “… teach you to be women, and independent, rather than mere chattels of men?”

  Keitha answered hesitantly “Maybe,—as cadets are taught in the Castle Guard, to use weapons, bear arms, protect ourselves? That is the way in which boys are taught to be men—

  She braced herself for instant refutation, looking scared, but Rafaella only said mildly “But we want you to be women, Keitha, not men; why should we train you as boys are trained?”

  “Because—because men are more self-sufficient, and women are meek because they have not been taught these things—

  “No,” said Rafaella, “Although all Amazons must learn to defend themselves if they are attacked, there are women among us who have never held a sword in their hands; Marisela, for instance. Doria, what do you think?”

  Doria suggested “Maybe—to learn a trade and get our own living, so we need not depend on any man to feed and clothe us?”

  “You need not be an Amazon for that,” said a woman Magda had heard called Constanza. “I sell cheese in the market, when we make more than we can eat, and there I see many women who earn their own living; they work as maids or servants, or they do washing, or work at leather-crafts. Some do so because they have shiftless or drunken husbands, and they must support their little children alone; and I know a woman who works as a maker of wooden dishes because her husband lost a leg riding mountain trails. Yet she defers to him in everything, as he sits in his wheeled chair at the back of their stall. That alone is not the answer.”

  Rafaella asked, “Margali, what do you think?”

  Magda hesitated; she was sure nothing she would say could be the right answer, that this part of Training Session was only to make the newcomers unsure, to dispel their early and ignorant prejudices. She looked around the circle of women, as if she might find an answer written in one of the faces. Two of the women, she saw, were seated under a single blanket wrapped round them both, their hands enl
aced, and as she looked, one of the women turned to the other and they exchanged a long kiss.

  She had never seen public lovemaking between women before, and it startled her.

  Rafaella was still awaiting her answer. Magda said uncertainly, “I don’t know. Perhaps you will tell us.”

  “We are not asking what you know, but what you think—if you know how to think,” Rafaella said waspishly.

  Thus urged, she tried to put some of her inarticulate thoughts into words.

  “Perhaps—by getting us out of women’s clothing, stop using the women’s language—because these affect the way we think, the words we use, the way we walk and talk and dress—” she fumbled, “because we have been taught to behave in certain ways and you will teach us different—better—ways of behaving—”

  And then she was unsure, remembering Jaelle’s love of finery, and the way in which, talking to Dom Gabriel or to Lady Rohana, Jaelle’s language had been as proper as the Lady’s own.

  “You are all right in a way,” said Camilla, “and you are all wrong. Yes, you will all learn to protect yourselves, by force if you cannot do so by reason or persuasion; but this in itself will not make you the equals of men. Even now, a day is coming here in Thendara when every little matter need not be put to the sword, but will be decided more rationally. For now, we accept the world as men have made it because there is no other world available, but our goal is not to make women as aggressive as men, but to survive—merely to survive—until a saner day comes. Yes, you will all learn a way to earn a living, but being independent of a husband is not enough to free you of dependence; even a rich woman who marries a poor man, so that they live upon her bounty, considers herself, by custom, bound to serve and obey her husband. Yes, you will learn to wear women’s clothes by choice and not from necessity, and to speak as you wish, not to keep your words and your minds in bonds for fear of being thought unmannerly or unwomanly. But none of these is the most important thing. Mother Lauria, will you tell them the most important thing they will learn?”