The Gate of Ivory

by Doris Egan

  There was a knock on the door-post, and someone pulled the curtain back. It was Tagra, the lovely girl with the spoiled face.

  "Grandmother wants to see you." She spoke tone-lessly.

  "Ahh… I think Ran's expecting me outside."

  "He knows he has to wait." She lounged against the wall and looked contemptuously over my possessions. "Are you coming?"

  I left the pack on the bed and followed her through the halls. I was uncomfortably conscious of her dislike, and found myself wanting to explain… but explain what? How can you apologize for a look? No words had actually passed between us. There was nothing I could take hold of.

  She stopped at a door with a violet curtain. "Here." She pulled it back for me.

  The room was blue, diffused with morning sunlight from the latticed window at one end, where Grandmother sat on a wooden bench in her nightrobe. The window was the largest I'd ever seen on this planet, almost as tall as I was.

  "Come in, dear. No need to be shy." She put her hairbrush down on the stool by her feet and held out her hand.

  I took it. "Good morning, noble lady."

  It seemed strange to see her without her braid pinned atop her head; it hung down like a sculptured chain of ivory over her right breast. "How long have you been reading the cards for my grandson?"

  "Almost half a year now, noble lady."

  She nodded and took down an inlaid marble box from the bureau beside her. Her fingers played with the lid. "You didn't know Ran when he was a child." I shook my head. "That was no loss to you; he was insufferable. He has improved since then, but he still has a long way to go." She wore the ghost of a smile. "I have plans for the boy, and I want him to be able to meet them. Tell me," she said suddenly, "I've heard that you come from Athena. What is it like there?"

  So I told her about the university, and the people I'd known, all the while wondering why I was there. No Ivoran does anything without a reason. What did this woman want from me? Presently she said, "Thank you, my dear, I never had much opportunity to hear firsthand of other worlds. And now I'd like to show you something." She grasped a corner of the bureau and pulled herself up, groping for her cane. I handed it to her. She led me slowly from the sitting room into her bedroom. I had never before seen anyone walk with the care and concentration she put into the act.

  I stared about in surprise. The bedroom was covered with maps. Star-maps, land masses, continents, city plans—they filled the walls. One half of the wall nearest the door was covered with pictures of places I'd never seen—though one of them, I recognized, was the Scholar's Beacon on Athena. A carved wooden bed pushed into one corner was the only concession to conventionality. A long marble table cut the room in two; it was piled with maps and charts, and an ornate astrolabe stood in the middle.

  She smiled at the look on my face. "It's just a hobby, child. Cormallons are curious about things, and I haven't been off the estate in more than forty years… yes, it's true. Don't look so surprised at everything, Theodora. Not everyone is brought up the way you were. See, this is where I was born." She pointed to a dot on a large map displaying five great land masses; on a peninsula in the southern hemisphere were the tiny words "Ducort estate 3." Looking further along the map I saw written "Imperial Capital" and "Cormallon main estate." I felt my own ignorance wash over me. I had not had much time for research before I came to this world, and after I arrived my time had been taken up by more immediate concerns. I had not even known that I was living in the southern hemisphere! But then, shouldn't it be warmer here at Cormallon than it was in the capital? I studied the map's notations and realized that Cormallon was much higher above sea level, as was most of the Northwest Sector not too much farther on. I had not known, either, that Cormallon was so close to the sector—was that why it was so easy for the family to find deserters to put in their employ?

  Grandmother went on, "Times were different then. I grew up on a Ducort tan plantation and only left it when I married into Cormallon. I only left this estate when I went to family gatherings with my husband. From what I hear, young women in the cities—those not of the Great Families, anyway—are very free indeed in what they do and the jobs they hold."

  "People without money can't afford this sort of chivalry," I said boldly, for the sake of Irsa, whose cart was next to mine for two years. It did not seem to displease Grandmother.

  "It is not quite… chivalry," she said. "It is custom, which is much more important. You may be surprised, by the way, that I know the word 'chivalry.' The home tongue of my first people—I mean the Ducorts—is French. We lost much during the settlement of this world, but the families cling to their ways."

  This time I tried not to let the surprise show on my face. I had heard of French and knew that it had not been spoken as a native tongue anywhere for more than five standard centuries. Custom was important to the families.

  "Let me tell you a story," she said.

  "I am the only one old enough in Cormallon to remember the days before we made contact with Tellys and the other planets of this sector. In those days there were no aircars, there was no Net… and women of respectable families were never seen by outsiders. Women criminals could not even be held guilty for violation of the law; their families were assumed to be responsible for everything they did. For me, you understand, this does not seem so long ago.

  "The tah plantation where I lived bordered the sea; there were five other families to the north and south of us, all allies of long standing. And far to the other side of us was a road, parallel to the sea, which led inland in time to the capital. We sent our tah to market along this road.

  "But the road was difficult to get to. Our workers carried sacks of tah by foot over the kilometers of undergrowth that separated us from it. All the families agreed it would be a good thing to build a road of our own, to connect us with the Imperial road, and we would send our wagons of tah along it. It would be a major undertaking, but we could all share the expense.

  "So they made the agreement among themselves and then said, through whose property shall we build this road? No man wanted it to be through his own property, for then strangers would see his women. The arguments over this took many weeks, and at last our family was forced to agree to have it built on our land.

  "They sent for builders from the capital and these builders brought a great machine with blades and a huge wall on its front, to clear a way for this road. We saw it drive up and sit near our house, ready to work the next morning.

  "We women knew what was happening, and much as our men did not want the road, we wanted it even less. You know, my dear, that we are often rather free in our way of dress when here on the estate."

  If Kylla was a sample to judge by, this was certainly true. I nodded.

  ' 'We knew that if the men of other families would be passing through our property, we would be made to wear veils and robes from head to toe. No one wanted that. So the next morning the women of the household all filed out to the construction site, led by my great-grandmother. She sat down in the dirt just in front of the great machine, and we all sat down around her. I was perhaps five or six years old. The construction manager was horrified. He had to pretend not to see us… but he could hardly start up his machine and crush us all. He begged and pleaded with thin air, and cursed his luck. 'If there were women of the house here, I would ask them to be kind to me!' he cried. 'I have my job to do! I would ask them to take pity on a man with children to feed!' My great-grandmother did not move. He went to my greatgrandfather, who did not want the road built there either, you will recall. My great-grandfather said mildly, 'Women will have their way in these things.' And he went inside to smoke his pipe, and did not come out again. This went on for five days, until the construction manager took his machine and went back to the city.

  "So you see, Theodora," she smiled, "Custom is a weapon as well as a disadvantage, and women of Cor-mallon and Ducort have ways of accomplishing what they want."

  I never doubted that for an instan
t, Grandmother. "Yes, noble lady.''

  She looked about and took the inlaid box she had been holding all this while and put it on the table. "The mortality rate of males in the Great Families is regrettably very high. That is why women still are not often risked outside estate boundaries. We keep the records, run the family councils, bear children to replace the ones lost in inter-family disagreements; so we are far too valuable to risk. Did you know that while the men of the Great Families keep the businesses going, much of the art and literature of the past four centuries has been created by women?"

  I shook my head. If it were not absurd, I would think that she was trying to convince me of something. But what could my opinions possibly matter to her?

  "But all this does not necessarily apply to you, my dear. You are precious to us in terms of the safety of our family, but your role requires a certain amount of risk. You could never be bound by the confines of an estate."

  Now, why did she want to reassure me of that? And just what did the noble lady want from me?

  "Well, enough," she sighed. "You must be going, and we come to my purpose in asking for this visit. I am grateful for your telling me of other places; and I'd like to give you a gift in return." She reached again for the inlaid box and played with the lid a moment, thinking. Then she opened it. She removed something shiny and black, about the size of a ripe plum, and held it in her fist.

  "You see, dear… I know that you may be facing some danger now, with no family to look out for you, and it may be hard to know whom to trust." She showed me what she held in her hand. It was a plump black cat, carved of onyx. "In old-fashioned times, girls would take these to dances and hold them to cool their hands. This one is special. Give this to someone to hold, and when you take it back you will know his thoughts concerning you. Wear gloves when you touch it, or else pick it up with the sleeves of your robe; otherwise it will betray your own thoughts." She placed it in my hand gravely, flesh against flesh.

  I looked at her, startled. Grandmother liked me. She wanted something from me, yes, something complex that I couldn't grasp, but she liked me. She wished me well.

  "Good-bye, child."

  I hesitated. "Noble lady? What happened to the road?"

  She had to recollect for a moment. "Oh. They never built it, after all. We went on sending the sacks of tan by foot. Of course, now they have aircars, so perhaps we saved them some expense. Run along now, child, my grandson must be waiting and I'm feeling tired." She took my hand. "Good-bye, cherie."

  "Good-bye, noble—good-bye, Grandmother."

  I went downstairs in a daze. Eln was waiting for me at the doorway.

  "How's Grandmother?"

  "All right. A little tired." I wasn't sure how to act with him; I hadn't seen him since last night's dinner.

  "I wanted to say good-bye." He leaned over from his floater and kissed me on the cheek. "Theo, if you are in any trouble…I'm willing to help."

  "I'm all right, Eln."

  He nodded, and said, "We're bound to meet again. Safe journey."

  I was wondering if I were being a fool, refusing help when it was offered; when Eln maneuvered his mount around in the corridor and the sunlight that streamed through the open front doors hit the niche just under his seat. I saw the shining outline of a fleur-de-lis stamped on the black metal. A fleur-de-lis: new and copyable technology.

  How much had that cost the Cormallons? I would have given a lot to know when Grandmother bought it for Eln— before he left the family, or afterward, as a bribe to come back. We have high standards in the family, Kylla had said. Ran hadn't been exactly gentle with my life, but he did me the honor of assuming I could play the game without any help. But someone had loved Eln too much, had made exceptions for him. And that was what he couldn't forgive.

  I went down the front steps into the sun, where Ran sat playing with a white puppy. He stood up. "Ready?" he asked me.

  Chapter Six

  It was dark before we passed over the crumbling line of the old city wall. Ran stopped several times to call ahead and make arrangements for us. It seemed like pointless dawdling to me; he could have called from the car just as easily. I had plenty of time to think about Eln. Whatever his problems—and it was clear I had no real understanding of what they might be—I couldn't get over the feeling that, somewhere along the line, Eln and I had hatched out of the same misfit egg. The country of his birth made no place for him that he could accept, a feeling I knew something about. What would I have been if I'd been fool enough to stay on Pyrene? As pathetically vicious as Eln, perhaps, but without the saving grace of Eln's wit.

  I longed to turn the car around, go back and tell him there were other places he could go to, other things he could attempt and win, planets where he would be respected. All he had to do was let go of the game he was playing here and learn new rules. Fine, Theodora! Tell that to an Ivoran, who believes in his heart that all foreigners are barbarians, and that the Imperial capital and his native estate are the twin centers of the universe. Tell that to Eln in particular, who couldn't even loosen his grip by the rules of his own people long enough to make his ishin na' telleth declaration respectable.

  There was something else, too.

  "Eln reminds me of somebody," I said to Ran somewhere over the foothills.

  He grunted, which meant that he was either acknowledging my remark or thinking of something else.

  "I can't seem to pinpoint it, though," I went on.

  "Maybe someone from Athena," he said. So he was listening.

  "If I'd met anyone like him on Athena, I'm sure I would remember."

  "An actor, then. Or a politician. Or a picture you saw once on a terminal." He spoke with Olympian disinterest, swerving to avoid a startled hawk.

  So I followed the thread of memory in silence, not getting very far. Soon enough we saw the yellow square of Ran's house and were parked on the roof, under the lip of the cistern.

  Once inside, Ran stalked about making sure all the shutters were closed. As soon as I entered the office, I saw that a cot had been set up alongside the desk; I went over and bounced on it tentatively.

  "I'll be sleeping in the room outside," said Ran, appearing in the doorway.

  "I thought you said we were being too cautious and the fire was a coincidence."

  "I said it could have been a coincidence."

  "What's to stop this hypothetical pyromaniac from starting a fire in here?"

  "Watch." He took out a match and twisted the bottom. Nothing happened. He twisted it again. "Try it yourself. This room is so well protected, even an ordinary fire can't get started. Ane and Stepan are in the house across the street, they'll be keeping an eye on the place. They spent the day setting up a monitor in here— the slightest whiff of any sorcery but my own and they'll be over immediately. Other than that, the business goes on. I'll screen the clients and you stay locked up at night."

  "I stay where?"

  This was my first argument with Ran. Hitherto I had silenced all thoughts of disagreement with the private incantation: Well, he's paying you. If the disagreement was strong I added: And he's paying you a lot.

  I had many occasions to repeat these chants over the next few weeks. In Ran's eyes I was simply too valuable a commodity to risk out on the street, at least until we had a better idea of where things stood. I passed the time observing clients, using the Net, and going through Ran's sparse collection of hand-held books. In the evenings he brought home dinner for us from market cookshops and we ate on the rug in the office. There are about twenty cookshops in and around the Square, and he varied his choice randomly every day. I mean that literally. Since the human brain is incapable of generating true random patterns, he assigned each shop a number and pulled the numbers from the Net. I began to understand that Ran was nothing if not thorough.

  Sometimes Ane or Stepan joined us for dinner; never both. One always remained across the street, in touch with the monitor. We played cards and drank great amounts of cherry wine; sometimes
Ane sang or played the kitha. Ran was trying his best to keep me entertained. Unfortunately the effect was too premeditated. Ane seemed a nice young woman, but she and Stepan were both naturally quiet and the effort involved in their good fellowship was painful to watch.

  I might at least have had the satisfaction of knowing that Ran's social life was as curtailed as mine; but since he was doing it of his own free will, to be polite, it just made me uncomfortable. I told him so, and after that Ane or Stepan would occasionally come over with dinner for one and a message from Ran saying he would not be home that night.

  And sometimes in the middle of the night, alone in the office, I would lie down on the inconceivably expensive carpet and beat it with my fists and pull up tiny tufts of shadowy crimson. I had been freer in the marketplace.

  It was Anniversary Day, the anniversary of the founding of the current dynasty, and cooks and bakers throughout the capital were making the stuffed rolls and green tah, sticky cakes and sugared fruit that were customary on the occasion. The Square will be a madhouse today,

  I thought; and I unscrewed the window a bit so as to look down disapprovingly on Ran's quiet, residential street.

  I could hear horns and cymbals, very faintly, in the distance. Ran was out somewhere, probably enjoying himself; no clients today. They were all off celebrating instead of scheming. Schemers without peer. When you think about it, I said to myself, why does a man come to a sorcerer but to gain an unfair advantage over someone else? What a lousy business we were in. I made a face out the window—take it any way you like, Ane or Stepan; I'll bet you wish you were outside, too.

  It was perhaps symptomatic of my state of mind that I saw everything in the worst possible light. I knew well enough that plenty of our clients came to escape trouble, not to cause it. Sometimes we attacked, but sometimes we defended, like any warriors; and Ivory found us honorable enough. I pulled down a book, flipped through it, put it back, and heard Ran come in downstairs.