Thendara House

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Margali, will you and your oath-mother come for a moment to my office before you go upstairs?”

  Magda had to admire the deft way Mother Lauria had singled the two of them out—you and your oath-mother—as if it had only to do with Magda’s challenged oath. Rafaella gave Jaelle a goodnight kiss. “You had better sleep with Margali tonight; you and I always spend half the night talking, and I am sleepy.” She punctuated the words with an enormous yawn. “We can talk business at breakfast. But don’t stay away so long next time, love—the Terrans can’t be keeping you as busy as all that, can they?”

  Jaelle hugged her goodnight. “Sometime I’ll tell you all about Terran clocks!”

  In Mother Lauria’s office, the Guild Mother said, “You have had a chance to see us and to remember our strengths, Jaelle— have you any suggestions?”

  Jaelle’s smile wavered. Magda thought she looked very tired. She said, “Only negative ones; I do not think Janetta would suit the Terrans—or the other way around.”

  Mother Lauria nodded. “It is a pity,” she said. “Since Janni is clever and learns quickly, I am sure the Terrans would find her excellent at their—technology.” She used the Terran word; there was no equivalent one in casta. “I think Keitha, too, would be valuable, and such learning valuable to her; Marisela is already taking her along on maternity calls—Keitha is a skillful midwife already, and with Terran training too, she could take Marisela’s place here when Mari is away on Sisterhood business.”

  “I have never understood the Sisterhood,” complained Jaella.

  The old Guild Mother smiled faintly. “Nor do I; nor does anyone who is not sworn to them, Shaya. But they go far, far back into the history of the Renunciates; some say they were the original Renunciates. Be that as it may—I do not think Keitha is yet able enough to control herself around strange men.” She sighed. “We should be thinking which of our best women we wish to send for the Terran training, not only which ones are able to survive among them! It is one of the strengths of our training, that it makes us hard and inflexible, and yet that is a weakness too… no society which is not open to new things can grow and change as we need to do. Kindra used to say that we should learn from everything which came into our lives.”

  Magda said hesitantly, “Perhaps we should simply describe what the Terrans want in House meeting, and ask which women would like to volunteer—and perhaps let one of the Terran women come here so that the—the Guild Sisters can see that Terran women are not so different.” Cholayna Ares, she thought, she would understand the Amazons and the Guild House, and the Renunciates would respect her strength and integrity. Yet Cholayna’s brown skin might arouse their xenophobia. She told herself she was being silly; certainly these women could learn to respect a woman of a different ethnic group!

  “That might be arranged. I myself would like to meet with some of these Terran women, Margali. Among other things—” her smile was kind. “I think it might help me understand you better. Sooner or later there must be meetings of this kind.”

  Jaelle said “Perhaps—perhaps you could come and visit the HQ, Mother? And perhaps—” she made the suggestion hesitantly— “invite some of them to dinner in the Guild House and let them speak in House meeting about what they offer, and what they ask?”

  Magda was glad the suggestion had come from Jaelle instead of herself; though she smiled at the thought of a regular Empire Recruiting agent here in the Guild House. Well, why not? There were women here capable of profiting by Terran education; she could, for instance, see Rafaella as a starship captain!

  “I will think about it, and that is all I can say at the moment,” Mother Lauria said, “though I would gladly visit there. And now I must send you both to bed.”

  Dismissed, Jaelk looked at her hesitantly. “You don’t mind, do you? She took it for granted that as your oath-mother I would prefer to stay in your room—”

  “All right by me,” Magda said, remembering the many nights she and Jaelle had spent together on the trail. Alone in their room, Magda asked, “And Peter, is he well?”

  “Oh, yes, very well.” Jaelle had lapsed into a brooding silence, which Magda was reluctant to disturb. She found Jaelle a nightgown; it was far too long, and Jaelle looked like a child dressed in her mother’s clothes. She sat on the edge of the bed, saying, “This reminds me of when I first came here. There were no children in the house, and Kindra could find nothing to fit me; I learned to sew by cutting everything down to my own size!”

  “How old were you when you first came here, Jaelle?”

  “Oh, eleven, thirteen—something like that, I don’t remember much.”

  “Where were you born?” she asked.

  Jaelle frowned and said curtly, “Shainsa. Or so I’m told; I don’t remember a thing about it. Your Terrans have already been after me to allow them to hypnotize me with one of their machines and tell them every little thing I remember. But I don’t want to remember—that’s why I forgot it in the first place.”

  “I don’t even know where Shainsa is. Isn’t it one of the Dry Towns?”

  “Yes. In the desert beyond Carthon,” said Jaelle, clipping off her words in distaste. “I didn’t have time to bathe before supper; I think I’ll try and find a free tub.”

  She went off to the common bath, and Magda, chilly even in the long warm nightgown, crawled into bed under the extra blankets she had managed to cadge. Her feet felt like ice; she tucked them alternately behind her knees, wondering why no one on Darkover had ever invented a hot-water bottle. Maybe I could be a public benefactor and re-invent the warming pan, she thought fuzzily, wondered why Jaelle was taking so long—had she fallen asleep in the tub? She did not wake when Jaelle came back in the dark, crawling over her to the wall side of the bed, to lie there fighting sleep until the familiar night sounds of the House, and the familiar scent of the mattress stuffed with sweetgrass lulled her into the deepest sleep she had known since she went to the Terran Zone.

  Magda dreamed. She was downstairs in the training hall—or was it the great ballroom at Ardais where she had danced, at Midwinter? Lady Rohana was there too, but with her hair cut short like an Amazon’s; and Peter was there as well, but they had to cross the pass of Scaravel before the snows began, and he kept trying to urge her to leave the ballroom with him. But now Peter belonged to Jaelle and had no right to try to persuade her this way. Finally she went out with him on to the balcony, but the balcony had become the causeway leading to the bandit stronghold of Sain Scarp, and Rumal di Scarp was there, so she drew her knife and defended the steps of the house against him, her sword moving as if by its own volition, defending Peter from his attack, and she went on, and on, disregarding his surrendering gesture, even though she knew that she would disgrace herself as an Amazon; but she didn’t stop, she went on slashing and striking until he lay dead at her feet in a pool of blood. The blowing snow in the pass turned to a stinging sandstorm, and beneath the shadow of a great rock she saw the pool of blood, crimsoning the desert in the light of the rising sun, and she was screaming, screaming—

  With a rush and a gasp, she woke, realizing that she was kneeling bolt upright in the bed, the covers flung on the floor, and it was Jaelle who was screaming… no, she was no longer sure there had been any screams at all, except in the dream whose fragments were even now fading to the shocking memory of blood on desert sand. The room was filled with pale light from the snow outside, reflecting the small green moon.

  “Damn dream,” said Jaelle, gasping. “I’m sorry, chiya. I’ve been having nightmares—want me to sleep on the floor?”

  Magda shook her head. “I was having a nightmare too—it’s my fault as much as yours. I always have nightmares after the training sessions.”

  “You too? I used to lie awake after session for hours because I was so afraid of the nightmares I got. What was yours?”

  Magda groped at vanishing fragments of nightmare. “Sain Scarp. Fighting someone. A pool of blood—I’m not sure,” she said, though, with
eidetic terror she could see Peter’s face at the center of the pool of blood.

  “I was dreaming about—I think it was my mother,” said Jaelle, off guard for a moment. “Awake I can’t even remember her face—I was so young when she died. But I have nightmares about her. I know she died in the desert, but that’s all I’ve ever been able to remember.” Yet Magda could see the nightmare in her mind. Clear, the blood spreading on the sand, frozen horror that would not let her move. Deliberately, to break the paralysis, she leaned over and tugged the blankets.

  “Aren’t you too hot with all these?” Jaelle asked.

  “Hot? God, no, I’m freezing,” Magda said, crawling gratefully under the blankets again. She wished for hot coffee or something like it. “Lady Rohana was there too, only she was dressed like an Amazon, or there were Amazons there too, I don’t remember… somebody was bleeding to death—no, it’s gone. What’s the matter, Jaelle?

  “Nothing, only I’m cold after all,” Jaelle said, her teeth chattering. “It’s so hot in Quarters, I’ve gotten used to it. Here, let’s try and keep each other warm.” She pulled Magda close, and the other woman’s body warmth was like an anchor, welcome, somehow solidifying the wavering edges of the light.

  “Peter never had any patience with dreams,” Magda said, finding the image floating in her mind without knowing why, “He always said no one was interested in them but Psych and Medic—if I just had to talk about my dreams, I ought to go down and find a psych-tech who would at least have a professional interest in them. Does he do that to you?”

  Jaelle shook her head. “I didn’t know the machines could give you nightmares, until he told me.”

  “But a properly adjusted corticator shouldn’t bother you so much,” Magda said, concerned. “You should make sure they have it properly adjusted to your alpha rhythms, of course. Who are you working with?”

  “I can’t remember all their names. There are so many—”

  “You ought to have an office to yourself, at least,” Magda said. “I spent years getting out of that madhouse down in the Coordinator’s office; you mean, after all the time I put in getting out of that mob scene, you let them put you back there? Jaelle, as a special resident expert in languages, you deserve a private office—you have to fight for your privileges, especially being a woman, or they’ll walk all over you!”

  Jaelle drew a deep breath of relief; so her loathing of the crowded office with the jammed, claustrophobic desks was not simply a sign of personal failure, as Peter often seemed to think; Magda hated it too.

  “You’re a special expert, not a routine clerk,” Magda reminded her. “Insist on what’s due you. They’ll expect it and respect you for it.” She thumped her pillow into a more comfortable position. “One thing I really miss here is a clock with a luminous dial. I never know what time it is!”

  And that was one of the things Jaelle appreciated most; being free of the tyranny of the continual emphasis on time. She supposed it was one of the cultural differences that went deepest. She only said “I don’t think I’d ever miss it,” and snuggled under the quilt. Magda buried her face in the pillow, and Jaelle moved into the warmth of her body.

  After a time they began to dream again. They were in some kind of tower, at the very top of a tower, and she and Magda were standing at opposite ends of a circle; somehow Magda seemed to look out from her own eyes and from Jaelle’s too, holding up, in their arms, a glittering rainbow-colored arch, like a glittering geodesic dome… the word geodesic came into Jaelle’s head, alien but she was not really curious about what it meant nor did she wonder from what odd experience Magda had become aware of its meaning. The dome was transparent but very strong, it would protect those below who were working—it was very important work but what they were doing neither of them could quite see, though Marisela seemed to be down there working, and there was a pleasant-looking man in his forties, wearing the green and gold of the Ridenow Domain, who looked up at Jaelle and suddenly met her eyes, and for a long minute they looked at one another, so that Jaelle knew that if she ever met this man in real life she would recognize him at once. He said softly, Are you here out of time, or astray in a dream, chiya? and she had no answer for him. And there was another Amazon there, her face round and snub-nosed—Jaelle had seen her somewhere but could not remember her name. Something was growing under their hands, and Magda felt very proud of what they were doing. Someone said in her hearing, Everyone of us here has had to outgrow at least one life, and Magda heard someone repeating a fragment of poetry—she knew it was very old:

  He who lives more lives than one,

  More deaths than one must die…

  and she said fretfully, “It’s bad enough to have to die once, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, there’s nothing to dying,” Marisela said, “I’ve done it a few hundred times. You’ll get used to it.”

  Magda seemed to be talking to a tall man with fair hair whose face Jaelle could not see. He reminded her a little of Alessandro Li but he wasn’t, and he picked up Magda bodily and carried her across a sudden, blazing strip of fire… Jaelle felt the fire sear Magda’s feet, and tried to run to her, but the dome was slipping through her fingers. And then she was in Peter’s arms, and he was holding her down, only it was not Peter, it was her cousin Kyril Ardais, and she heard herself say fretfully that she should have counted his fingers before going to bed with him. Only somehow it was not Kyril either, it was one of the bandits who had attacked them, and Magda was in Peter’s arms… no, Magda knew it was not rape, she knew she had gone willingly into Peter’s arms only now when she had left him she knew that in a very real sense he had been using her all that time, dominating her because he knew she was his superior in their shared work, and now Jaelle was going to have his child, but they were alone, trying to climb down the cliffside of a mountain, ice-steps hewed into the side of the mountain, and she was looking for Lady Rohana, because Jaelle was pregnant by one of the bandits and she was going to die in childbirth unless she could bring Lady Rohana to her in time. She was dying, she was bleeding to death on the sands of the desert, there was a blizzard with sand that cut like blowing snow in their faces, and Jaelle was lying on the sand bleeding, and yet as she twisted and screamed in childbirth, it was somehow Magda’s child she was trying to bear, the child Magda should have borne Peter but she had left Jaelle to it…

  And they woke again in each other’s arms, clutching each other tightly, the heavy blankets and quilts kicked off them. Magda pulled away, reaching for the blanket, but Jaelle held her.

  “Oh, the Gods be thanked, I am here safe, here with you, breda,” she said, gasping, holding Magda tight, “I was so frightened, so frightened—” and she pulled Magda down close to her. “What were you dreaming this time?” And she held Magda tightly and kissed her.

  Magda felt the kiss and for a moment it blended into the magical way in which she had shared Jaelle’s thoughts in the dream. Then, shocked and shaking, she pulled away. What had this place done to her? She felt weak and drained and the early snow-reflected light at the window sent knives through her head. Jaelle looked up at her and the laughter died in concern. “It’s all right, Margali,” she said in a whisper. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, you’re here with me, bredhya.” She tried to pull Magda down again into the comfort of her arms. But Magda pulled free, stumbling, her dressing robe dragging on the floor behind her. The floor felt unsteady, bulging and rippling under her feet, and when she got into the bath and splashed her face with icy water it seemed to burn her skin without clearing her vision or cooling her fever.

  Irmelin was there under the icy shower; the very sight made Magda shiver. She looked surprised to see Magda.

  “Awake so early? You are not on kitchen duty, are you? Or helping Rezi with the milking?” She moved aside, and said, “I’m finished here,” and picked up her towel. She stopped a moment, concerned, watching Magda clinging to the basin. “Are you ill, Margali?”

  Magda thought, Yes, something is wron
g with me, but she only shook her head.

  “There is blood on your nightgown,” said the plump, smiling woman. “If you take out the stain now with cold water, you will be doing a kindness to the women who are working in the laundry this moon.”

  “Blood?” Magda was still in a stupor of horror from the dream; she started to say, but I’m not even pregnant. She caught herself—how foolish! She bent to look; it was true. The heavy nightgown was spotted with blood.

  Well, that explained part of the dream, anyhow; explicitly sexual dreams had always heralded the onset of her menstruation. The treatment she had been given in the Terran zone, to suppress the cycles of ovulation, must have worn off. She had not been expecting it. Peter had always laughed at the sexual dreams she had at that time, saying that if she had been equally passionate earlier in her cycle, he might have been able to make her pregnant—she cut the thought off, angry at herself for remembering. She went to the cupboard where supplies were kept, and Irmelin, watching her, said, “You really do look unwell, Margali. If I were you I would ask Marisela for some of the herb medicines she keeps for such things, and then go back to bed and try to sleep.”

  She did not want to disturb Marisela’s rest, but it was a temptation; to go back to bed, to huddle there and complain of sickness, to put it all aside. And the thing which made her feel sickest was that she wanted nothing more than to go back to Jaelle, let the woman comfort her, find the same kind of rapport she had had with Keitha after the fight, when Marisela’s drug had worn down her defenses, and this time follow it as far as it would lead. But she could not face Jaelle, she could not face anyone with this thing, whatever it was; she was helpless, unprotected… she felt entangled, enmeshed in conflicting loyalties like spiderwebs. Her hands shook as she washed out her nightgown.

  I am jealous of Jaelle. Not because she has Peter, but because Peter has her, now… he accused me of this once and I would not believe it.