Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  Senior girls had their pick of rooms in order of their achievement scores in DDR: discipline, dedication, and religion. Genevieve, ranking first, had chosen the tower room.

  "Rapunzel, Rapunzel," her friend Glorieta teased, quoting from a yore-lore fairy tale.

  "Let down your hair," whooped her twin, Carlotta.

  "Better let down her nose," said snide Barbara, a resentful and distant runner-up. "It's longer."

  Silence, then a spate of talk to cover embarrassment.

  "Your nose is your misfortune," Mrs. Blessingham had said on more than one occasion. "But your talents make up for it."

  It was a hawkish nose, one that ran, so said the wags, in Genevieve's family. As for the talents, no one knew of them but Genevieve-and Mrs. Blessingham, who was one too many.

  "The nose would look better on the Marshal than it does on you," Glorieta had admitted, referring to Genevieve's father. "Pity it had to be on the female side, though even on you it has distinction."

  Genevieve often daydreamed herself away from Haven, to a place where her nose was quite normal, even beautiful. In her dream world, the singing she listened for with such effort was simply part of the environment, a song she herself could produce without anyone telling her to hush. The fantasy was pervasive. On occasion Genevieve would come to herself in the middle of a meal, unable for a moment to remember where she was because she had been in a place more vivid than reality. Even when awake and alert, she often longed for that other world, though hopelessly, for even if it were real, she couldn't go there. No one emigrated from Haven. Haven had cut the umbilicus that had tied it to the rest of humanity.

  Shortly after settlement the Lord Paramount of Haven had announced to the settled worlds that he and his people were resolved to keep to themselves, eschewing all outsiders or outside things-except, that is, for the Lord Paramount's short list of essential imports. If something was wanted that wasn't on the Lord Paramount's list, if the people of Haven couldn't produce it by traditional methods, approved by God as stated in the covenants, then they had to do without. Thus, even if Genevieve's nose might be normal elsewhere, elsewhere was eliminated as an option. Her nose was her nose, this world was this world, and for noblewomen to sing was counter-covenantal. Genevieve, Marchioness of Wantresse and future Duchess of Langmarsh, would simply have to live with her nose and her silence.

  "If mother were alive, she'd let me get it fixed," Genevieve whispered to Glorieta, during afternoon recreation, walking through the gardens on their way to the badminton court, their skirts swishing around their ankles, the long sleeves of their high-necked blouses daringly turned up to expose delicate wrists.

  "She would not!" said Glorieta. "Surgery is very dangerous, and that same nose is in your mother's family portraits. I've seen them."

  And she had, of course, when she and Carlotta had visited Genevieve over the seasonal holidays. There they hung in the great hall of Langmarsh House: Genevieve's mother, Marnia, Duchess nose of Langmarsh; Genevieve's grandmother, Lydia, Countess nose of Wantresse; Genevieve's great-grandmother, Mercia, Duchess nose of Sealand, and so on and so on. And, in the place of high honor, many times great-great-grandmother; dark skinned, dark haired and mysterious, Stephanie, who had become Queen of Haven by virtue of marrying the Lord Paramount.

  "Besides," Glorieta continued, "if the nose was good enough for a queen, it's good enough for you. And since there's no male heir, you'll be Countess Genevieve of Evermire and Wantresse, Duchess of Langmarsh, Mistress of the Marches, so any nose you have will be quite all right."

  Which rather summed it up. Genevieve's father, the Marshal-i.e. Arthur Lord Dustin, Duke of Langmarsh, Earl of Evermire etcetera, Councilor to the Lord Paramount and Marshal of the Royal Armies-had desired a male heir. The Duchess Marnia had become pregnant four times after Genevieve's birth, each pregnancy ending in miscarriage or stillbirth, as had the pregnancies of other wives married into the Dustin clan. The subject of genetic defect (whispered by the physicians) could not, of course, be mentioned to the Marshal and as was her covenantal duty, Marnia tried for a fifth time. Her physicians had strongly advised otherwise, and as they had feared, the baby had been stillborn and Marnia herself had died soon after.

  The Marshal should have had sons. He was at his best as a leader of men. At the first sound of an alarm trumpet, his cold intelligence would turn from its mundane aggravations, ubiquitous as the itch, to focus his smoldering angers upon the matter at hand. Even when outnumbered, the Marshal won battles, and facing equal forces, he swept the field. Though malcontents were rare on Haven, though battles were few, the Lord Paramount felt any battle was one too many. Therefore the Lord Paramount- though not fond of many men-was very fond of the Marshal.

  A dozen sons might have diverted his attention from Genevieve, giving her some peace. As it was, she fell often beneath his reptilian eye, her dreamy insufficiencies and languishments tabulated and filed away for future reference. Though she was attentive to her duty, she seemed to him insufficiently blithe. Men liked women who were untroubled, and Genevieve too often seemed to be thinking about something. He had, therefore, simplified his life by packing Genevieve (then eleven) off to Mrs. Blessingham's school, which was conveniently located in Avanto, the county seat of alpine Wantresse, only one long day's ride from Langmarsh House.

  Subsequently the Marshal, to the surprise of most everyone, had remained a widower, though he had sporadically shopped about for a son-in-law to be the future Duke of Langmarsh. During the summer festivals or when Genevieve was home during the Northerlies, the Marshal made a habit of introducing her to likely sons of the nobility, always without consequence. After one such holiday, the Marshal wrote to Mrs. Blessingham suggesting that his daughter was "too like her mother to be satisfactory," "couldn't something be done to her face?" and she should be "livened up a bit," a message which was received with something very like despair.

  "Did you meet any new men? What did you think of them?" Glorieta asked after each interlude, eager for sensation.

  Genevieve refused to titillate. "That's what father always asks me. I always say each one is very nice, but mostly they aren't. They always look at my nose."

  "How did you like them? I'm not your father, you can tell me the truth!"

  "My loins did not twitch," Genevieve replied. It was quite true, though she wasn't at all sure she would know if her loins did twitch. Barbara said twitching was unmistakable, one couldn't miss it, but if one had never experienced any such thing, how would one know? Genevieve had invented a dozen persons that she could imagine being,, she had invented a hundred scenarios in which those characters might act, she had never imagined one with twitching loins.

  "Lust is not something we wish to dwell on at our stage of life," said Miss Eugenic, the instructress in spiritual health. "The less said or thought about one's loins at this stage of life, the less trouble one will have later on. It is Mrs. Blessingham's view that for covenantal and Godly Noblewomen, sexual feelings and attractions should be avoided as long as possible. The practical applications of sexuality are best dealt with when the necessity presents itself. Now we are more concerned with acquiring resignation and dedication, for the sake of our souls."

  The state of one's soul was considered important both for noblewomen and those aspiring to that state: i.e., daughters of the wealthy bourgeoisie whose papas coveted a title in their families. All such women were expected to be pious, to have imperturbable poise, rocklike dedication to the covenants, and a broad background of conversational information covering all the fields of general interest in Haven. Since all aristocratic women were presumed to be future mistresses of establishments, they had also to master the skills of personnel management and training, the economics of a large household and the basics of court etiquette and dress. These were studies enough, all told, to fill all the years before the question of twitching loins would become urgent (one dared hope) at the imminence of marriage.

  Though many lower-class women wo
uld be married before twenty, covenantal women were "allowed the gift of youth," as it was phrased in the covenants, as compensation for the oath every noblewoman took at marriage: "I vow a covenantal life spent in my husband's service." Thirty was the accepted age of marriage for noblewomen, most bore no more than two or three children, and any extra risk they might encounter by delaying childbearing was supposedly compensated through the services of off-planet physicians - though some of them perished in childbirth nonetheless. Off-planet physicians and medical supplies - along with gravsleds, various weapons and "a few other oddments" - had always been on the Lord Paramount's "short list" of essentials.

  Late marriage was a comforting thought, Genevieve admitted to herself, though red-haired, green-eyed Barbara thought otherwise.

  "I am sick unto death of Mrs. Blessingham's. I don't know why they are so determined here to delay us, delay us, delay us. No marriage until late twenties. No babies until one is thirty, at least. And no sensible reason for any of it except that the older we are, the better prepared we will be. It's ridiculous! Pray heaven some impecunious but stalwart lord will show up so Papa may impress him with my dowry and I may go elsewhere!"

  "Before you could marry a lord, you'd have to be accepted by the Covenant Tribunal," retorted Carlotta. "Probably the Tribunal won't even accept a commoner your age!"

  "Oh, pooh! Covenant, covenant, that's all I hear. You nobles certainly like to make life difficult and boring for yourselves."

  To which Genevieve silently but wholeheartedly assented. The covenants were like a strict nanny, always saying no or don't or can't. "No singing, Jenny. Singing girls are like crowing hens. Both of them come to the same bad ends." "No running, Jenny. Covenantal girls conduct themselves with decorum." "No dreaming of Prince Charming, Jenny. Don't forget:"

  'Covenantal daughters marry who...

  ever their papas tell them to!'

  Daughters of the covenants were required to bear their children at home and nurse them for at least a year, thus joining noble nurture to noble nature. Daughters of the covenant were required to rear their daughters as they themselves had been reared, through an untroubled and godly girlhood to a dutiful maturity of gracious submission.

  Long ago, when she was much younger and had not learned to display resignation, Genevieve had rebelled against that duty. "Why?" she had cried to her mother. "Why do I have to when I don't want to!"

  Her mother had replied, softly as always, "Because our great-great-great-grandmothers assented to it, Jenny. When our forefathers bought Haven, they recruited strong, healthy young women to be the royal and noble mothers of all future generations, and the young women were allowed to choose to come to Haven or not, as they pleased, but if they opted to come to Haven, they agreed to obey the covenants."

  "I didn't agree! What right did some woman a thousand years ago have to agree for me?"

  "Because that's how it works, love. We all do what our ancestors found to be best. Why learn hard lessons over and over?"

  "Nursing babies for a year!" young Genevieve had said scornfully. "Della's sister's baby is only six months, and she's weaning him already!"

  "Year-long nursing is in the covenants," Mother had said, little lines of worry between her eyes.

  "It wasn't in the original covenants. I read them my very own self!"

  "Jenny, I've asked you to stay out of the library. Your father will..."

  "I read them," she had insisted, pouting. She had also read the history of the settlement, and could understand very well why young women might have promised almost anything to get away from the planets they had lived upon. Besides, the covenants back then were not at all like they were now!

  Mother sighed, running a pale hand across her brow, as though to sort out the thoughts that lived inside. "The Tribunal has made some amendments from time to time. I'm sure there are good reasons for all the covenants, and we have been taught that women are happiest in gracious submission to the covenants."

  If that had been the case, Mother should have been very happy, but she had never seemed so to Genevieve. Of course, what Mother said upstairs in her public voice for the Marshal or the servants to hear, and what mother said down in the cellars when she and Genevieve were alone there, were totally different things. Upstairs was covenant, covenant, covenant, all over everything, like moss, with the visiting scrutator scraping away at it to uncover any hidden notions of disobedience or independence.

  Despite her private reservations, Genevieve earned a passing grade during each spiritual audit, however, and that was the public side of things.

  The secret side of things happened in the lonely hours of the night, when Mother and she went tip-toeing down the stony stairs into the earth-smelling dark, lit only by their candles. It happened when they pushed open the heavy, dusty doors to go beyond the wine cellar, past the coal store, into the deep, moist world of otherness, when they left the covenants behind. Once hidden away they became, so Mother said, separate minds who taught and learned things not of that world. Those teachings would be realized in Genevieve's time, or if not, passed on to Genevieve's daughters to be realized in some later time. Whichever it might be, they could never be practiced or spoken of anywhere else! Never until the time was right. Promise.

  Genevieve promised, though she had no idea why she would ever speak of them? Nine-tenths of them, she did not understand at all.

  "Mama, what are harbingers?"

  "Those who sing the song."

  "Mama, what is the song?"

  "You'll know it when you hear it."

  "Mama, if the scrutator says I have a soul, and the covenants say I have a soul, why... ?"

  Though Mother always answered the questions, Genevieve did not always understand the answer, for Mother often seemed to live in a different world. At breakfast times, her eyes sometimes were focused on something far, far away rather than being cast down in holy resignation as they should have been, even while the Marshal ranted over the latest letters and promotion lists, bloody bedamn this, bloody bedamn that.

  Though perhaps Mother had chosen to take no notice of the Marshal's ways, for he cultivated angers like garden vegetables until each was well ripened and firmly rooted. These habits served him so well on the battlefield that he had never thought to leave them there, neither the hot fury that led him off on daily rants nor the cold wrath that stirred in him seldom but was more fearsome for its rarity.

  Genevieve had felt it first on the night of her eighth birthday. There had been guests invited to dinner, and when the guests departed, one neighbor had stayed behind to play a game of chess with the Marshal. He was an elderly and kindly gentleman, familiar enough that Genevieve did not feel shy around him. That day she had been much indulged by mother and the servants, and when the men sat down in the shadowy room with the firelight glinting from the shelves of leather-bound volumes that stood forever at attention, even the Marshal had not sent her out of the room as he customarily did.

  Genevieve was curled on the settle with a new book, though when the two men started playing, she looked at the game board instead of the pages. At first it was only a drowsy watching, but gradually she began to see the why of the moves and her gaze became intent.

  The pieces were interesting. She had seen them before, but without really paying attention. Now she had a chance to watch them in action on the board. The little ones, she decided, were like the housemaids. They could not do much or go very far, and they were always in danger of being snatched up, as she had seen the Marshal snatch one up, a pretty one that Genevieve much liked but did not see again after that time. So did the little pieces disappear when they were snatched up, back into the box.

  The horsemen were more powerful, able to jump fences this way and that way. Along with the horses, each side had two pieces much like the Marshal, she decided, for they could go all the way across the board on the slant, while the fortresses, which were like her father's battle wagons, had to stick to the roads.

  The la
st two pieces were the Lord Paramount and his Queen. Even if father hadn't said their names, that is all they could be, sitting there quietly, depending upon the marshals and battlewagons and horsemen to protect them while their little serving maids ran this way and that way, screaming, with their aprons over their faces.

  In the end, if it was necessary, the Queen would sacrifice herself for the Lord Paramount. Genevieve saw exactly how it happened. The Queen did not show what she could do. She moved only when she had to, never bustling about, but if the Lord Paramount was threatened, she moved to save him. If necessary, she died for the Lord Paramount. As this was in accord with covenantal behavior, Genevieve was not surprised. Lives of service to their lords and masters was the lot of womankind.

  The particular night was blustery, but as it was cozy before the fire the two men played for a long time. When father's old friend went home at last, Genevieve climbed down from the settle and eagerly asked her father if he would play the game with her. He, softened by wine and an indolent evening, felt momentarily indulgent. It was her birthday, after all. "Well, my child, that shouldn't take long, now should it. Shall I help you set up the pieces?"