Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “Mother, we praise you,” Shavell was intoning, and all the novices murmured after her again. “Mother, we bend before you. Mother, we draw from you all grace and offer to you all our own strength. Grow full with the riches of our bodies . . .”

  Around her, Ellynor heard the voices of the other novices, rising and falling with the same melodic cadences of Shavell’s. Beside her, Ellynor’s cousin Rosurie had her eyes closed, her hands clenched; her whole body appeared tense with rapture. Rosurie had embraced the Pale Mother with all her heart, flung at the Silver Lady’s feet all her considerable ability to love. Ellynor marveled at the transformation sometimes, for Rosurie had always been the most passionate and willful of girls, the one most likely to inspire the anger of her father or the sorrow of her mother. The one all the kinfolk had shaken their heads over. “She’ll be one who comes to ruin,” the uncles and brothers had predicted. “She’s the one who’ll bring disgrace to the family.”

  And she had, or almost. Falling in love where it was most disastrous, causing great consternation and negotiation among the clans, the sebahta. Almost causing a clan war, to hear Ellynor’s father talk about it. And yet here she was, at Lumanen Convent, speaking the Pale Mother’s name with the sort of reverence she had once reserved for her wholly unsuitable lover. The truth was, Rosurie had inexhaustible passion. If her father or her brothers had been able to convince her to marry within the clan network, the sebahta-ris, she would have been the most devoted wife imaginable. She would have borne many children and loved them all so deeply their hearts would never have been lost or cold. She would have been an icon among the sebahta, a beacon, a lesson held up to all the young girls. See, this is how a Lirren woman lives. Make her actions your ideal.

  Shavell lifted both arms above her head, the elbows pointed out, the fingertips just touching. The complete circle, the full moon. The novices giggled and twittered as they made their matching pattern on the ground, grouping themselves into one large, round shape made up of many girls in white robes. From the sky, Ellynor supposed, they did resemble a full moon, albeit one made up of restless, moving components that could not stand entirely still no matter how much they were admonished. Shavell led the singing, and they all raised their voices in the sweet ritual of the evening song. There was always some jostling for position, some girls preferring the outer edges of the circle, some the core, all of them trying to guess where Shavell would make her first divisions. Some wanting to stay, some tired and wanting to go.

  Shavell, still singing, walked the perimeter once, then begantapping on the arms of the novices bunched on the east side of the circle. Slowly, gradually, they drifted away, still singing, their voices growing fainter. Slowly, it was as if the moon-shape on the ground went through its phases—full, almost full, gibbous, half—till finally what was left in the courtyard was a quarter moon that mimicked the waning crescent that would rise later tonight. The novices who had been dismissed entered the convent and disappeared. Those who had been chosen remained outside to sing until midnight.

  Ellynor was content to be one of those left behind. Shavell was uncannily good at making sure no one sang too many late-night rituals in a row—though, of course, during the earliest phases of the full moon, they were all out almost every night, reflecting back a whole, round shape to the brilliant Silver Lady. Late in the month, though, fewer and fewer voices were needed until, on the evening of the new moon, no one stayed and no one sang. The next night, Shavell would single out fifteen or twenty novices to create a bare sliver of a curve; the next night, a larger group would stay. And so it went every night after that, until the moon was full again and all five hundred and some novices stood beneath the Pale Mother, reciting her praises and her glories.

  Ellynor did not mind the grand choruses, the full-throated choir of five hundred offering exultation to the goddess, but she preferred the smaller groups, the quieter ensembles, the rituals under a night sky that held almost no moon at all. She always tried to be on the proper side of the circle the night before the new moon so that she would be among the women Shavell selected to sing. On those nights, it was as if the moon had disappeared completely and only the stars looked down.

  Cold, still, crystalline.

  It was only on nights like those that she did not miss the Lirrens.

  They had not asked her to accompany Rosurie to Lumanen Convent, her father and her uncles. They had not discussed with her whether or not she wanted to go. They had merely told Ellynor to pack her clothes, she would be leaving with her cousin in the morning. She would be off to take vows at Lumanen Convent, where she would live with the Daughters of the Pale Mother and dedicate her life to the moon goddess.

  It is just temporary, her mother had whispered to her as she helped Ellynor pack. Her mother was weeping, holding up first one simple dress, then another, and burying her face in the familiar folds. This exile is temporary. Only until the men decide what’s to be done with Rosurie. A year perhaps, two at most. You will be back among us soon. But now, a year into her life at the convent, Ellynor knew two things that her mother did not. Novices rarely left Lumanen; so far, in fact, Ellynor had not seen one of them go. And Rosurie had developed a fanatic’s blissful attachment to the moon goddess. She would not want to leave—indeed, she would throw all her considerable force of will into a show of intractability if they tried to take her. And if the formidable Lestra decided she wanted Rosurie to stay at the convent, Ellynor thought it very likely Rosurie would never leave. The men of their family might finally have met their match.

  It was something that gave Ellynor an intense satisfaction.

  Shavell moved among them, poking and prodding to make sure they all kept in their proper scythe formation, tilting her head to listen critically to their singing. Ellynor required no realigning; her feet had barely moved. She was not a restless girl who could not stand quietly for a paltry hour or two. Ellynor had as much will and resolve as her cousin Rosurie, but she exercised them in a much different fashion. She could focus; she could narrow down. Shavell nodded in approval and continued her way around the outer curve of their pattern.

  Ellynor had been glad to learn she was leaving with Rosurie. Glad of a chance to get free of her father’s constant attention, her brothers’ imperious, impatient criticism. She loved them but, Great Mother, she could not breathe when they were around! That was her life; that was the life of every Lirren girl, to be guarded and guided by the fierce men of the sebahta, and a girl never rebelled against them and won. Since she had been a child, Ellynor had dreamed of slipping away in stealth, of climbing out her window some starless night and running from her father’s house. She had studied maps in secret, tracing her best route, noting which roads ran too closely to other clanholds and must be avoided. She had listened to tales of the country over the Lireth Mountains, trying to divine what life was like for women who lived in Gillengaria and wondering if she would find it any more to her taste. She even listened to stories brought back from the true adventurers, the ones who had sailed to foreign lands with names like Arberharst and Sovenfeld. What kind of life did women lead in those places? Could Ellynor travel so far and be happy? Was there a way to escape?

  She never ran. Never packed her bundles and tried. In truth, Ellynor was afraid she would miss them all too desperately to enjoy her freedom, if she was able to attain it. What she wanted, she realized, was to live among the sebahta, close to the many that she loved, but free of their incessant surveillance and interference.

  To quit the influence of her father and brothers—and uncles and male cousins—she would have to marry. And then she would be subject to her husband’s dictates, and answerable to his relatives, who would feel perfectly free to scold and correct her.

  To be free of them all, she would have to leave.

  So she had been thrilled at the prospect of crossing the mountains into Gillengaria and going to live at this convent she knew nothing about, to serve a goddess she had never heard of, in order to provide compa
ny for a cousin she had never been particularly close to.

  She had quickly learned that, in its own way, life at the Lumanen Convent was just as restrictive as life in a Lirren household. Every novice had a rotating set of household duties—cooking, cleaning, working in the laundry room, chopping wood, gardening—and every novice was expected to participate in at least two of the six devotional rituals held every day. Decorum was strictly enforced, and, except for singing, raised voices were not allowed. There was no running, no dancing, and very little laughing, though novices were encouraged to keep pleasant smiles upon their faces. It almost went without saying that absolute chastity was required—even though several hundred soldiers lived inside the Lumanen compound, many of them young and handsome enough to stir any girl’s heart.

  No, the convent was not the right place for Ellynor, either. But she was not unhappy here. The quiet, contemplative life suited her, and she enjoyed the quick friendships she had formed with the other girls. She found it easy to avoid Shavell’s ire because she was not high-spirited and dramatic, and she rather liked doing her part of the domestic chores every day. Now and then she rather wistfully watched the soldiers stride from their barracks, through the courtyard and out the great gate. What would it be like to get to know one or two of them, form a friendship with a man who had not been approved by her father? But more trouble lay down that road than she was willing to risk, so she would watch them a moment or two, and then look away.

  She found herself fascinated by the religious ceremonies, by all the rituals designed to honor the Pale Mother. She loved the circles the novices formed every night, the slowly slimming and burgeoning shapes designed to reflect the changing phases of the moon. She loved her moonstone bracelet, glittering with a private fire that she could always feel as a definite heat against her wrist. She was curious about this goddess who seemed so powerful, so pervasive, and yet so elusive, shyly hiding her face one week, brazenly staring down from the heavens the next. Capricious and beautiful—like Rosurie, she thought wryly—the Pale Mother was a bewitching mistress who held everyone at the convent in thrall.

  Ellynor herself loved a different goddess, but they were sisters; surely they did not mind sharing worshippers.

  In the Lirrens, there was only one deity—the Black Mother, the Dark Watcher—the great goddess of the night, whose attention was just as close and protective as that of anyone in the sebahta. It was said she knew the name of every child, every crone, in every clan, and spent each night counting them over again before she fled the oncoming day. Concerned that something might have happened to her people during the hours she was gone, as soon as the sun went down, the Black Mother hurriedly spread her shadow back over the Lirrenlands and began her counting all over again. To help her in her task, the Lirrenfolk often turned to face the eastern horizon right at sunset and softly offered up their names. Ellynor. Rosurie. Wynlo and Torrin. I am here where you left me last night.

  Ellynor had worried, just a little, that the Black Mother might not be able to follow her over the Lireth Mountains, that when she left her family, her sebahta, and her country behind, she might leave her goddess as well. But the Dark Watcher was here in Gillengaria as she was in the Lirrens, comforting and omniscient, wearing as always her scattered jewels of starlight. Whenever Ellynor looked up to sing her praises to the Silver Lady, the Black Mother was always there as well. In fact, most of Ellynor’s hymns and obeisances were offered up to the Dark Watcher, not the Pale Mother, but no one had to know that but Ellynor herself.

  AT midnight, the quarter moon dissolved—at least the one on the ground, shaped by novices—and the girls moved slowly through the courtyard, up the stone steps, and into the convent. The massive doors opened onto a huge hall, echoing and not particularly welcoming. The high ceiling, ribbed with supporting stone arches, was lit by wheeled chandeliers; the stone floor was cold underfoot even in the middle of summer. Ellynor always moved as quickly as she could through this space and into one of the labyrinthine corridors that honeycombed the five-story building. For the first two weeks she had lived here, she had been lost every day. Now she took the twists and turns without thinking.

  Rosurie was in the room they shared, but not asleep. There was a single candle burning in the window, similar to candles set in every window of the convent, and faithfully lit as soon as the sun went down. In addition, the room was illuminated by a branch of candles pulled over by Rosurie’s narrow bed. Rosurie was braiding her long chestnut hair for the night.

  “Shavell will be furious if she sees you’re burning candles this late,” Ellynor commented as she stepped inside.

  Rosurie shrugged and blew them out. The room instantly filled with shadows, only the flame in the window giving any light to see by. Ellynor waited by the door until her eyes adjusted, then carefully crossed the room to her own bed. Rosurie said, “I just wanted to wait up for you. And it’s so gloomy sitting in the dark.”

  Ellynor rather liked the dark. More than once, back at home, she had stayed up all night, just to watch the changing constellations across the night’s obsidian face. Of course, back home she’d been able to sleep the next day through, which wasn’t an option at the convent. Here, everyone was up and working shortly after dawn. “Did you get a letter from home?” she asked, because she’d seen the unfolded sheets spread out on Rosurie’s bed.

  “Yes,” the other girl said happily, and instantly launched into a recitation of who had gone courting, who had been sick and recovered, who had argued with his father but quickly come to his senses. Ellynor listened while she cleaned her face and put on her night clothes. There were blood ties between their families, so they were related to many of the same people, but they would have called each other cousin in any case. Ellynor’s Alowa family and Rosurie’s Plesa family were both part of the Domen sebahta, and everyone in the sebahta considered everyone else kin. More tenuous were the relations between clans within the sebahta-ris—those alliances were based on friendship and necessity as opposed to blood, though a man might call another man cousin just because they both belonged to one of those nine great networks of interconnected families. Those of the Domen sebahta belonged to the Lahja sebahta-ris; any man of the Lahja alliance might call on any other to defend him if he fell afoul of an enemy. These days there was much less clan warfare than there had been in the past, of course, but there was still great hostility between some sebahta, some alliances that would never be made.

  Rosurie, for instance, had fallen in love with a boy from the Bramlis sebahta, bitter enemies to the Domen. It was for this transgression that she had been exiled to the Lumanen Convent. She had announced her intention of running off with him, crossing the Lireth Mountains and disappearing somewhere in Gillengaria, where they would live as husband and wife, with no fathers or brothers to interfere. Ellynor had actually rather been hoping Rosurie made the escape, just to see if it was possible, but, of course, Rosurie had not been successful in her bid for freedom. The Bramlis boy’s father had been just as eager as Rosurie’s to make sure the match did not occur. Only the Great Mother knew how his family had dealt with him. Rosurie had been shipped off to the Lestra.

  “Oh, and our uncles are back in Coravann.” Rosurie was continuing with her recitation. “My mother thought they might come by to see us here, but I don’t think that would be allowed, do you?”

  “I’m certain it wouldn’t be!” Ellynor said with a laugh. “Do you want to ask Shavell for permission? Or, no, would you like to go straight to the Lestra?”

  Rosurie giggled. “That’s what I told her last time she asked, but she doesn’t seem to understand that sebahta means nothing in the convent. I don’t know how to explain it to her.”

  No, for anyone raised in the Lirrens would have a hard time comprehending that the Lestra—a woman—could be absolute law within her own defined circle. Ellynor and Rosurie, used to submitting to authority, had recognized it immediately in the persons of the Lestra and her dedicants, but the men of their fa
milies would never find it so easy.

  Ellynor lay back on the narrow mattress and half listened to Rosurie’s continuing story. Strange as it still seemed to her, Ellynor had kin in Gillengaria—so did Rosurie. One of the Lahja women had eloped more than thirty years ago with a man named Heffel Coravann, marlord of one of the Twelve Houses. Naturally, the men of her family went after him, for that was the Lirren way: If an outsider tried to ravish or romance a Lirren woman, one of the men of her family would face that outsider in a duel to the death. Usually, the sebahta men won—or, more often, the threat itself was enough to keep Lirren women safe from the attention of interlopers. Not this time. Heffel Coravann had killed his bride’s father and carried the woman off to his estates at Coravann Keep.