Thendara House

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Ah, Goddess, I did not know—Margali, I know I must speak with you, and yet—” she pressed her hands, distracted, to her head. “I must hurry; in spite of what I said to the little girls, this is the woman’s fifth child and there is not much time to spend.” She came quickly to Magda and put her hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. Magda thought, she knows what is happening to me. But that is not possible.

  “Promise me, little sister, that you will not do anything rash before you and I can sit down together like sisters and have a good talk, such as we have never had—I am at fault, I should have known better, but promise me, Margali—now I must go and get my bag. But wait, do you really need me as much as that? My duty to a sister comes first; shall I send Keitha to take care of this confinement and stay with you, breda?”

  But already the overload of sensation and confusion was fading. I am imagining things, Magda thought, overtired, I drank too much last night, and you can believe anything when you have a hangover. “Of course not, Marisela, go along; look, the children are waiting for you.” The little girls had appeared at the door to the kitchen, their faces and pinafores smeared with honey. Marisela still looked uncertain.

  “Look after her, Camilla, just while I go up and arouse Keitha—”

  “Pah!” Camilla wrinkled her nose with contempt. “You leroni, you think you have the answers to everything, don’t you? I’ll look after her. You attend to birthing babies, which is what you do best!” She laid an arm around Magda’s shoulders, and Marisela sighed and turned to the little girls, grabbing up the black canvas sack in which she kept the tools of the midwife’s trade.

  “Come along, let us get back to your Mammy, my dears.”

  “Come along, love,” Camilla said. “Mother Lauria is waiting,” and Magda, pulling herself together, followed her into the office; but it seemed still that she could see the troubled blue eyes of the midwife resting on her back.

  Yet inside the office it was as if a button had been pushed and her mind clicked over into another gear, all the way back to normal. Camilla was perfectly barriered… she will not do that incredible thing to me, not as Marisela has done, she is so tightly barriered from years of habit. I do not think Camilla has even read me enough to know I am Terran. But perhaps I should have asked Marisela to stay, perhaps she can help me learn to shut all this out…

  But no. It had never happened, Magda decided, looking from Cholayna’s wise brown eyes to Camilla’s level gray ones. She was simply imagining things. Camilla was listening to Cholayna’s description of what they wanted, giving serious attention to it.

  “Gwennis,” Camilla said, “Margali, she was among your oath-sisters that night we witnessed your oath, but perhaps you would not remember her—it is a crime not to know your own oath-sisters. She would be good for this, the very fact that she was willing to go and learn at Nevarsin—”

  “If she is Margali’s oath-sister,” Mother Lauria said, “I would not like to separate them again as soon as Gwennis has come back, by sending Gwennis to the Terran Zone, unless Margali is to go too,” and Magda realized, and again it struck her with the difference. Mother Lauria really meant it just like that; her priorities were so different it was still impossible, even after half a year in the House, for Magda really to understand how her mind worked. She really thought it was more important that Magda and Gwennis should remain together, just because of the accident that they had both happened to run into one another that night in the travel-shelter where Magda had taken the Oath, than that Gwennis should have an opportunity to study under the Terrans! Suddenly Magda felt alienation again, She was so different, here among these strangers, and fought furiously to shut it out again. It was just a matter of making up her mind not to surrender to it. Camilla was looking at her expectantly, and she said, pulling herself together, “But I really know nothing about Gwennis; I met her only that one night.” She knew Camilla, and Mother Lauria too, would be shocked if she confessed that of the women who had been there when she took her oath, she could remember only Jaelle and Camilla, and she could not even remember which had been Gwennis, and which the other women—Sherna, was it? Devra? She was not even sure of their names. Yet she was sworn to them.

  They spent hours working in Mother’s Lauria’s little office, but the afternoon sun had begun to grow dim in the room when Mother Lauria stretched and yawned.

  “Well, I think we have the proper group—if only the women we have chosen are pleased; if they all refuse then we will have to start again—”

  “But they will not all refuse, certainly,” said Camilla. “One or two of them might, which is why we have chosen ten instead of five or six. And you, of course, will want to talk to them— Cholayna,” she added, rather shyly. Magda was pleased to see that they liked one another. But still Cholayna has not mentioned that I am Terran. How will Camilla feel when she knows that? Will she hate me? I love her. I do not want to leave her, and then Magda realized she must be tireder than she thought; she was seeing pictures again, herself riding away from Camilla, the older woman’s sad face… when would they meet again, if ever? This was nonsense; she would not leave Camilla, not now. Not for a long time, she hoped, though she was still not sure there would be any kind of permanent commitment.

  At one moment, during the long love-play before they slept this morning, Camilla had stopped for a moment, looked at her with heartbreaking intensity. “Margali, I would swear an oath with you; you know that?” and Magda had laughed and kissed her, but inside she thought; No. I am not yet ready for this. Not yet, if ever. Something inside had warned her not to say anything rash.

  Just like a Terran. Keep control all the time, never just let anything happen…

  “I think we are all too tired to go on much longer,” Mother Lauria said, “and we have done as much as we can before we bring it up in House meeting, which will be in four days. You can come then and talk to us, Cholayna, and meet these women face to face, and ask them for their own opinions. So—” she rose, briskly, though Magda could see the lines of weariness in the old woman’s face. “Cholayna, will you stay and eat dinner in the House? Our women may as well begin to get used to you as our friend.”

  “It would please me,” Cholayna temporized, “but perhaps we should go a bit more slowly, until they know who I am and why I am here. Once I have been introduced in your House Meeting, and they have a chance to decide for themselves whether they wish to make friends—”

  “You are right,” Mother Lauria said, “then I shall expect you on the evening of that night; you will dine in the House with us before the meeting?”

  “I should be honored,” she said. It seemed to Magda that she was a little fearful.

  “Remember, Mother Lauria, that Cholayna does not eat meat, or any food which has once had life.”

  “That can be arranged, easily enough,” Mother Lauria said, and Cholayna smiled with relief as she went into the hallway to find her outer coat, a thick fur thing covering her uniform, which was more adapted to the heated corridors of the Headquarters.

  Janetta was on Hall-duty; Mother Lauria introduced her to the Terran woman. Janetta’s face lighted—she had been suggested, Magda remembered, for this kind of learning, and evidently Mother Lauria had mentioned it to her.

  “Janetta will escort you back through the city,” Mother Lauria said. “No, really, Cholayna, it is growing late, and if you lost yourself—there are some quarters where a Terran would not be safe, and some where a woman would have trouble, and you are both. I am sure that you, like Margali, can protect yourself, perfectly well, but it would be easier if you had no need to do so; I am sure she has told you that one of the first laws of a Renunciate is that it is better to avoid a situation causing trouble than to get out of it once it has happened.”

  “I should be honored,” said Janetta with quiet formality. She laid a hand for a moment on her knife. “Nothing will happen while she is in my care, Mother.”

  “But this is ridiculous,” Cholayna said,
laughing, “Do you really think I need an armed escort?” No, Magda realized, she had not said it, once again she had heard Cholayna thinking those words, then realizing that they would have been offensive, a rebuff of something that was very serious to Janetta; aloud Cholayna said only, “Thank you, Janetta; it is very kind of you, and kind of you, Lauria, to arrange it.” The two women stood looking at one another for a moment, then Lauria suddenly laughed and hugged her.

  “All Amazons are sisters, and the Goddess grant, one day I may truly welcome you as one of us; till then, you are welcome among us as a kinswoman, Cholayna,” she said, and Cholayna, hugging her in return, said seriously, “May it be so, indeed.”

  Magda, watching, knew she had witnessed something very important, more important than anything Montray had babbled about diplomatic relationships, in its own way just as important as that invitation from Comyn Castle to bring a Terran delegation to Festival ball. Now indeed I have done the work which I came here to do, she caught herself thinking, but she shook Cholayna’s hand and heard the woman saying that she would see her in a few days from now.

  “I like her,” Camilla said, as they stood in the hallway watching Janetta escort her down the walk, “as I never thought I would like any woman from another world. Kindra—who was my Oath-mother as well as Jaelle’s—used to say that a day would come when we would find we had much to learn from the Terrans, and every year I grow more convinced of how wise she was. You knew the Terrans when you were in Caer Donn as a child, did you not, Margali? I could see that you knew one another well.” She yawned. “Well, we have spent the whole day at this, but I do not think it was wasted. I had meant to go out for a ride today, I am weary of being housebound, and I thought I might get leave to take you out with me. But it is too late now to ride, I think—look, the night’s rain is beginning; Janni will be soaked before she returns!”

  “Oh, she won’t melt,” Mother Lauria laughed. “She is used to being out in all weathers… Margali, how tired you look, my dear! Take her upstairs and put her back to bed, Camilla, and we will send you both up some supper. You won’t mind that, will you, my girls?” She winked at them kindly, and Magda thought, abashed, She knows we are lovers; well, of course, she probably takes it for granted that any woman coming to the house will experiment before the Housebound time is past. Even Keitha, who was so scornful… and she remembered how she had sensed, this morning, that Marisela was not alone… well, their work had thrown them together, as with Magda and Camilla, only perhaps she was more open to it than the cristoforo Keitha—

  “And where is Marisela?” Mother Lauria asked, so appropriately that for a moment Magda wondered if the Guild-Mother, too, was reading her mind. “I knew she went out on a case this morning; it must have been unusually difficult, poor girl, she will be half dead when she comes home; I think I will make her go up and have supper in bed too! These things always happen, for some reason, the day after Festival—is Keitha still here to look after her when she comes in?”

  “No indeed,” said Irmelin, who was on hall-duty. “I saw her go out with her midwife’s bag; a man came for her, and since Marisela was not yet back, she went out with him—”

  “She should not go about the city alone,” said Mother Lauria, troubled, “Legally she is housebound still; but worse than that, her husband might still try to revenge himself on her, or to catch her outside alone, so that he could get her home and imprison her…”

  “She knew that,” said Irmelin, “but I think this man had spoken in her presence to Marisela; Keitha knew him and said she could not let a woman suffer when there was need of her skill. I think she believes her work as midwife may even be more important than her Renunciate’s Oath—”

  “There is nothing in either to negate the other,” said Camilla, “yet I am her Oath-mother and I worry about her; I should go to the man’s house and make certain she is all right, perhaps escort her home to be sure she is safe. Marisela would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her…”

  “That would be a good idea,” said Mother Lauria, relieved, “Irmelin, did she leave word where she was going?”

  “To the Street of the Nine Horseshoes,” said Irmelin, and Camilla pulled down a cloak from the ones hanging in the hallway.

  “Shall I take Margali with me. Mother?”

  “Indeed not,” said Mother Lauria severely. “It is bad enough for one novice to go out into the streets on the night after Festival, which Keitha should not have done without asking leave; though I can see how it would seem natural to her to rush off to deliver a child. But not both of them. If you don’t wish to go alone, take Rafaella or someone, but not Margali.”

  Camilla bowed somewhat ironically to the Guild Mother and went out, saying, “I will be back as soon as I know she is safe—”

  “No, no, wait and escort her home,” said Mother Lauria, “though I am sorry to send you out when you are so tired. But Margali is a big girl and can put herself to bed for once!” She chuckled, and Magda felt herself blushing. She said, “Don’t be silly, I am not as tired as all that; I will go and see if they can use any help in the dining room putting supper on the table, since Keitha is not here.”

  “You mustn’t mind,” said Irmelin while they were putting on their aprons and taking down crockery bowls. “It is always so, they like to tease the women who have become lovers—after a few days they will take you for granted, as they do Cloris and Janetta, but if you and Camilla quarrel and stop sharing a bed they will tease you again for a few days, that is all; you heard how they teased Rafi when she went home for the night with a man—and speaking of Rafaella, did I not hear her on the stairs just now?”

  “No, she went out hours ago, when you were all in Mother’s office,” said Rezi, “She said she had a caravan to take out, Shaya had sent for her from the Terran Zone. I had all kinds of questions to ask her, but she had no time for any of them, and Margali—”

  “Never mind,” said Mother Lauria hastily. “Go after Camilla; take your knife and go swiftly. If it is truly a trap that Keitha has walked into—”

  Rezi’s face changed. She said, “By the Goddess, I never thought of that! And Keitha is out alone—the Street of the Nine Horseshoes, you said?” She was drawing on her cloak as she spoke. “I’ll catch up to Camilla before the end of the street.”

  The door banged behind her, and Mother Lauria said, “We need not wait dinner. I am sure there is nothing worth waiting for anyhow; the night after Festival there will be nothing on the table but leftovers.”

  “Well, there is half a roast rabbithorn,” Irmelin said, “and plenty of the gravy and stuffing. And if anyone does not want leftovers there is plenty of good bread and cheese, and after Festival it would do anyone good to fast for a day or two anyhow.” The women moved around, finding seats.

  Magda was glad Camilla had not gone alone; the woman was not young and they had had a couple of sleepless nights. Yet she wished she could be the one to fight at Camilla’s back, if fighting was needed; she envied Rezi, who was sent matter-of-factly to defend her sister. She took up a piece of cheese and nibbled it absentmindedly.

  She should have gone with Camilla. Mother Lauria was wrong. Camilla was her oath-sister and her lover; it was her personal responsibility to fight beside her; and Keitha was her oath-sister as well, so that it was her personal responsibility to protect Keitha too. She should have argued Mother Lauria into realizing that it was an obligation of honor.

  I have been Terran all this day and now I am thinking like a Darkovan again…

  There was a stir in the hallway and loud shouts, and three women came into the dining hall, their outdoor cloaks soaked.

  “Ah, how it rains! As if it were trying to make up for good weather on Festival night, like always,” they cried. “Well, we are back, everybody—”

  “Sherna! Gwennis! Devra!” exclaimed Mother Lauria, coming forward to embrace them, and then everyone was up from the table to hug the newcomers, to help them off with their coats, to ask a t
housand questions. It was the tall quiet one, Devra, who recognized Magda first and hugged her.

  “Margali! I had heard you were going to Neskaya, but of course Jaelle would have wished to bring you to her own House— where is Jaelle n’ha Melora?”

  “Oh, she has taken a freemate, and is living in the Terran zone—”

  “Jaelle? A freemate? Now will I truly believe that Durraman’s donkey can fly,” said Gwennis, laughing boisterously. “She would be the last woman in the world, I had thought, ever to give herself over to a man—she has been with Rafaella too much, that is all, Rafi has corrupted her—”

  They all crowded to the table, teasing and joking. Sherna demanded, “Where is Camilla?”

  “She and Rezi went off—there was some worry about one of our novices,” Mother Lauria said, “A fear her husband might try to find her again outside the house; so they went to escort her home.” And then the three of them had to be told all about the fight with Keitha’s husband and his hired mercenaries, about how Keitha had apprenticed to Marisela and later become her lover, rapid-fire gossip and shared memories and allusions which Magda could hardly follow. They told, too, how Magda had fought for the House and been wounded—by now, Magda realized in surprise, they were not angry with her over the indemnity, but proud of her for defending them so well.

  “Cloris, fetch a couple of bottles of the good wine from the cellar,” Mother Lauria said. “We will drink to the return of our sisters.”

  “We have more to drink to than that,” said Rezi, coming in, with Keitha and Camilla, all very pale. “As you thought, Mother, it was a trap. Oh, yes, there was a woman in childbirth, but while Keitha was there in the house someone had sent word to Shann MacShann. We found him in the street outside, ready to waylay Keitha when the child was born and she was done with her work.”