Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19

by The Ruins of Isis (v2. 1)

  Is she the superstitious fool Mahala thinks her? I simply can't believe it!

  Miranda stirred uneasily, and Cendri thought; her baby might be born at any time; she must find this a long afternoon, sitting on these hard benches—for even in the Official Box, where the benches were cushioned, they were hard, not particularly comfortable for a pregnant woman. She slipped out of the box, and Cendri went after her; she was anxious to see what she could of behind the scenes.

  The rest room facilities were luxurious, as everywhere on Isis, with large mirrors at which many of the women were preening themselves and lavishly re-applying cosmetics; this was, Cendri realized, one of the few social events where she had seen cosmetics worn at all, and clothing was more elaborate than she had yet seen. Miranda was delicately outlining her large blue eyes with a shadowy variety of colored pigments, an effect which Cendri found bizarre but pretty; female adornment varied so much from world to world that it was hard to tell just what kind of social or sexual cues any given adornment was supposed to convey. Laurina, the young teacher from the college of Ariadne, was there too; she greeted Cendri with her usual blend of wide-eyed awe and puppyish friendliness, and Cendri was glad to see her. She glanced uneasily in the mirror at her own face—her society did not wear cosmetics except to repair an obvious defect, to cover a freckle or birthmark too small to bother about removing, or color streaked hair to a uniform hue; at Miranda's suggestion she had worn a little pink cosmetic on her cheeks, and a little gilt glitter on her eyelids, but even this modest paintwork seemed blatant and overdone. Laurina, however, commented on how pretty she looked. Women were crowding around the mirrors, and Cendri realized, from the narcissistic chatter and attention—quite unlike the usual haphazard attitude to clothing—that this was an event intended for display on both sides. She filed away everything she saw for later analysis. It was the first event she had seen at which men and women frankly displayed their attractiveness to one another.

  And yet—she saw too, not only in the secluded rest room but on the stairs, as she went back with Miranda—the women were excited and some of them over-wrought, but in spite of their awareness of the men, they made no overt move toward them. In a nook of the stairs, however, she saw two or three couples—pairs of women—seeking partial privacy for intense and passionate kissing and fondling. Cendri, who had never seen public lovemaking between women before, was embarrassed, turning her eyes away from the couples. She had seen so many different sexual patterns on so many worlds that nothing in the gamut of human sexual behavior could really surprise her, but this seemed stranger than anything she had seen yet. She would have thought that the presence of the men would have turned the women toward them, caused them to fix their attention on the handsome males in the arena. At her side Miranda sighed:

  "At times like this I am lonely," she said in an undertone, "I even miss my old partner—" And then, in a low voice, "Or I regret that— that there is no way Rhu and I can be together like this! What is the matter with me, Cendri, that I am so unlike my own people? I find that I envy you and your Companion more than I can say!"

  Cendri said nothing—what could she say? At last, hesitating, she said, "Every society has its own rules, Miranda, but they are made by the people in the society, there is nothing necessarily ordained by divine authority about any of them; and in every culture I have ever seen, there are some who do not fit into the patterns of its society. I don't know what you can do about it, in this world you live in, but you shouldn't feel bad about yourself because you are different."

  Miranda blinked fiercely, clinging to Cendri's arm. She said, "I wish—I wish—I don't know what I wish. Maybe I wish we were part of the Unity, so that Rhu and I could go away together somewhere, to a world where it wouldn't be shameful for us to want to be together all the time—I feel so disloyal to my mother, when I say this!" She struggled for self-control, standing between Cendri and the balustade of the stairs. Women returning to their seats edged past them, maneuvering—Miranda was so pregnant that it was not easy to pass her on the narrow stairs—and giving them indulgent looks, winks and smiles. Cendri realized that they accepted that she and Miranda were one of the couples she had seen. But she had no time to worry about that, though it was embarrassing; she was concerned with Miranda, who was crying noiselessly, tears streaming down her face. Helplessly, Cendri dried Miranda's eyes with her own scarf, urging, "Come along, come back to your seat, Miranda. Don't cry like this here, don't—"

  Miranda gulped and struggled with her tears. She said, sniffling, trying to smile at Cendri, clinging to her, "How do you know so much about people, Cendri, when I thought you would only know about dead civilizations, and people who have been dead for millions of years—"

  It was like ice-water; could Miranda possibly guess that she was more a student of cultures than of archaeology? She urged gently, "Come back to the seats, Miranda—I have lived on University, that is all, and we have so many different kinds of people and societies there." She urged Miranda up the rapidly emptying stairs and corridors. At one crossroad she stopped, looked down; it led—evidently—directly down toward the quarters where the athletes readied themselves for the arena, the dressing rooms— or, since they performed naked, the undressing rooms?—and saw Dal. He was at the center of a group of men, clustered tight around him, and for a moment she felt brief unease. Rhu had made it clear that despite his preferred status as a Companion—or perhaps because of it—he was not welcome or even safe in an ordinary group of men from a Men's House.

  But it was also immediately obvious that Dal was in no danger. They flocked around him; athletes, naked, sweaty, or wrapped in loose towels or capes, still wearing the ribbons and garlands of the arena; other ordinary men of Isis in their drab clothing. But one and all were wide-eyed, clustering around him with something like reverence. Was he lecturing them, conspiring with them, making incendiary statements? Or was it simply a kind of hero worship— they were simply eager to see, touch, listen to a man from the worlds where men were not woman's property? In all the time she had been on Isis she had seen no such male assembly. Was it even permitted? Would Dal get into trouble over this? Or did anyone on Isis even know or care what men did among themselves? Was Dal an inspiration to them, then...? He turned, made his way slowly through them; they reached out to touch him, reluctant to let him go, but made way deferentially, did not hinder him. Cendri realized that they must get back at once to their seats, the important part of the show was beginning. Also she was reluctant for Dal to know she had been watching him. At Miranda's side she went quickly along the area behind the seats and back into the Official Box. Miranda hung back, saying in a whisper, "I don't want my mother to see that I have been crying—" and pushed Cendri forward to sit next to the Pro-Matriarchs. Dal and Rhu slipped into the Box, taking seats at the back, and Cendri noticed out of the corner of her eye that Rhu slid into a seat close to Miranda.

  She leaned back and whispered to Dal, "Where have you been? I saw you with the men—"

  Dal's eyes were hard. "Keep out of this Cendri. I mean that."

  The final contests began. Cendri, steated in the prominent Official Box, could see the women around the arena, watching the struggling men, wrestling, struggling, locked together, were leaning forward in fascination and excitement. Cendri could see all the signs of frankly sexual arousal—flushed faces, moist lips, dilated eyes. She had never seen women react this way; the nearest thing she had ever seen to it was when she had watched men at some of the sex-display entertainments in the spaceport night-life areas. The women here applauded, made loud appreciative comments, whistled and shrieked, threw down flowers and garlands in excitement. Cendri, comparing the reactions of the women to the reactions of the men in the cruder sex-display areas in the Unity, realized they were virtually identical. She had always believed— naively, she now realized—that women were immune to visual sex stimulation of this kind.

  Well, what had she expected? This had been the only contact she had seen b
etween men and women. They didn't associate in any normal way with men. Somehow or other they must have sex with them—and it's physical sex, they didn't react very favorably when Miranda mentioned artificial conceptions in the Unity—but I still don't know under what conditions it takes place. Judging from this, the taboos are very strong and definite! She thought of this and recognized that she was behaving, almost automatically, like the trained anthropologist and cultural expert she was, but on a deeper level, she realized, there was something more personal.

  Poor women, they haven't any idea of what men are like as people___

  The winner of the final wrestling match, a huge muscular fellow with great bulging biceps and pectorals, and a gleaming golden mop of curls, obviously dyed, was being garlanded with flowers and serenaded with a song by the men of the city. He looked around the stands, winking, leering, mugging in a way she had seen no man on Isis do, soaking in the appreciative squeals of the women in the stands. He came directly below the Official Box, and Mahala rose and spoke a few gracious words, handing the prize down to him—it was a complete and fairly expensive hunting outfit, warm clothing, boots, bow and arrows, sleeping bags, tent, and a number of other items whose uses Cendri could not even guess. She noted, from Vaniya's quiet explanation, that the items of clothing had been provided in duplicate for each of the major entrants so that each could take home his prizes for immediate use. A lottery was being held to give away the unclaimed prizes, and the men in the arena were laughing and strutting and jostling one another good-naturedly, but the women in the stands, the events over, were rising and crowding toward the exits.

  "Let us wait a few minutes," Vaniya said. "Miranda, you do not want to be jostled in the crowds now."

  "When is your baby due?" Mahala asked, coming to Miranda and taking her hand in a gracious gesture.

  "Not very long now," Miranda replied. Her tears were dried now and she looked calm, though weary. "I had thought it might have come already by now, but they come when they will."

  Mahala turned to Vaniya and said, "So you will have an heir at last, if it is a daughter. How proud of her you must be!"

  "I am indeed, cousin," said Vaniya. Cendri knew that in the language of Isis this did not denote relationship but was a term of courtesy between equals. "And our Inquirer, Maret, tells us the child will be a girl, so it is indeed my heir who awaits birth." She stood at the rail of the box, looking down at the handsome naked men good-naturedly pushing one another out of the way as the remaining prizes were distributed and every competitor received boxes of confectionery and bright ribbons and garlands. With everyone standing near the exits it was crowded in the box, and Cendri was shoved against the other women. She felt a body pressed tight against hers, knew it was the ample form of Vaniya; the Pro-Matriarch put an arm around her waist, and Cendri let herself lean on the older woman. Vaniya's cheek pressed hers, and Cendri, responding for a moment to what seemed a spontaneous gesture of affection, let her head rest a moment on Vaniya's shoulder. Then she realized, startled and more than a little shocked, that the heavy body was pressing hard and purposefully against hers, that Vaniya's hands had strayed to her breasts and were fondling them gently, but insistently. She tensed in embarrassment, her first, startled response to pull sharply away, in outrage and dismay. Then she remained very still, thinking faster than she had ever thought in her life.

  In a sense it was a compliment, a mark of total acceptance, that Vaniya should treat her this way. Such an event seemed to be a legitimate occasion, among the women of Isis, for near-public displays of sexual arousal; and Vaniya, forgetting or ignoring her alien origin, was treating her as one of their own.

  At the same time, she thought ruefully, textbooks on anthropology gave no hint as to how one should react in such a case. She knew she ought to feel revulsion, rage, disgust; instead, what she felt was a kind of helpless tenderness. She stood very quietly in the circle of Vaniya's arms, neither responding to nor rejecting the caress, and after a moment Vaniya, aware of her reaction—or lack of it—took her hands away and smiled, almost in apology. She said softly, slipping her hand through Cendri's arm, "Forgive me, my child, I had really forgotten, for a moment, that you were not one of us."

  Cendri gave the plump arm a gentle, momentary squeeze, and they moved out of the box on to the stairs, as Vaniya said in an undertone "I am an indiscreet old fool. Are you very angry with me, little Cendri?"

  "Angry? No, Vaniya, I'm not angry," Cendri said gently, and Vaniya, squeezing her arm again, moved away from her to Miranda's side.

  "Cousin," said Mahala, "You have waited so long for an heir, and you are so beset now with cares, your guests from University, that you cannot enjoy this fortunate time; if it is your will, I will gladly have the honored guests from the Unity to lodge with me, so that you can give all your attention to Miranda and her coming child, and to making ready for the birth-festival. Would that release you from care, cousin? I will willingly relieve you of this duty."

  "I am sure of it," Vaniya returned with a dulcet smile, "but it was our Mother's will that I should have them where they can be convenient to their work, and personal cares and conflicts must come second to my duty to our High Matriarch. I am sure there are many other duties and responsibilities to your hand, cousin."

  Cendri thought; they really hate each other, don't they? She watched the rival Pro-Matriarchs descending the stairway, and again the image touched her mind; Vaniya as a great tawny lioness, Mahala—she had seen Mahala, in private, as a small friendly kitten; here she saw her as a sleek, prowling black panther!

  They moved to the stairs and she found Dal at her elbow. His face was tense, storm-clouded. He said, in an angry whisper, "I saw that wretched old dame trying to paw you, and you didn't seem to mind at all, you were letting her put her hands all over you, and grinning at her—I knew the women here were filthy and corrupt, but damn it, Cendri, when you join in that kind of thing—"

  "That's enough, Dal," she said, in a sharp undertone. "For them it's normal. Vaniya wasn't crude about it, and from her it was a compliment. If I wasn't offended, how dare you make an issue of it?"

  "Compliment!" Dal said in outrage. "It's their world, they can do anything they damn please, but when you stand there letting her maul you, and stand there smiling up at her, looking pieased—and say you weren't offended—"

  "Lower your voice," she ordered sharply. "Have you forgotten where we are?"

  "How in the hell can I forget?" But he did drop his voice to a whisper again. "Lousy, corrupt—and you're my wife! How could you—"

  "Dal, for mercy's sake, what was I supposed to do? Yell, slap her, make a scene, precipitate a diplomatic incident? When she saw I wasn't reacting, she let me go and apologized for forgetting I wasn't one of them. Can't you see that's a compliment, Dal?"

  "Some compliment," he grumbled, unappeased, and held her back so that they were some distance between the two Pro-Matriarchs, who had reached the bottom of the stairs and were exchanging—Cendri supposed from their looks—formal courtesies prior to entering the waiting official cars. Dal said, "Listen, Cendri, I think we ought to think seriously about leaving Vaniya's house—I'll be damn glad to get out of the place—and moving to stay with the other one, Mahala. She's a reasonable woman, in spite of her fears of the Unity. We can relate to her in a way we never could to Vaniya, with all her supersitious nonsense about the Builders and their sacred site."

  "Dal, I really don't think—"

  "Look, after all, it's a way of demonstrating that we aren't really allied to Vaniya's political faction. And today something happened which made me realize—"

  Cendri never heard what happened or what he realized. At that moment loud cries of dismay and lamentation rose, spread through the crowd. She heard Vaniya cry out in grief and felt fear clutch at her heart—what had happened? Had something happened to Miranda? No; Miranda was standing next to her mother, crying out, adding her own voice to the rising chorus of lament. She hurried down the stairs toward th
em.

  Mahala raised her eyes to Cendri and said, her voice low and tense, "Catastrophe, my dear Scholar Dame. Our Mother and Priestess, the revered and beloved High Matriarch Rezali, has left us and ascended to join the Goddess. We have just had word; she died but a few moments ago, without ever recovering consciousness."

  "And so," Vaniya said, her face pale, "We are without a High Matriarch. And there is no way of knowing, cousin, which of us would have succeeded to her ring and her robe."

  Cendri looked at the two rivals, in shock. She had not known the dead woman, the late Mother Rezali was nothing to her. But what would this mean to her work? What would this mean to Vaniya and her household?

  Mahala said blandly, "I must go home at once. I am certain that the Mother Rezali will attempt to communicate with me from the great barrier, and I must be ready to receive her word. I pray—" She turned to Cendri and bowed, "Excuse me, Scholar Dame, that I leave you without ceremony. Vaniya, I confide to you, as Mother Rezali wished, the care of our honored guests, since I am sure you will have no other duties at the moment."

  Cendri saw Vaniya's large broad face flush pink with wrath; but she merely bowed to her rival and said nothing. When Mahala had stepped into her official vehicle and driven away, Vaniya took Cendri's arm in a tight clasp. Miranda came close to her mother, flushed with anger.