Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Well, if you don’t want whisky, I can think of a better way to warm you in this cold place,” Kyril said, and she realized that he had moved to block her exit from the stall. “Come, Jaelle, you need not pretend with me; you have lived with those Renunciates, and all the world knows how they behave about men; would any woman ride astride with her legs showing, unless she wished to invite any man who sees it to spread them?”

  Jaelle tried to push past him. She had been a fool; she should have managed to keep the horse between them. “You are disgusting, Kyril. If I desired any man, it would not be you.”

  “Ah. I knew it; those lovers of women and haters of men have corrupted you! But try it with a real man, and I swear you will like it better.” He caught her around the waist and tried hard to push her against the edge of the stall.

  “Oh, what a fool you are, cousin! Just now you said Renunciates were all mad for men, and now you will have it that we are all lovers of women. You cannot have it both ways.”

  “Oh, Jaelle, don’t haggle with me; you know I’ve been hungering for you since you were only a skinny little thing, and now you’d drive any man mad,” he said, pushing closer and trying to kiss the back of her neck. She forgot about not wanting to alienate him and pushed him away, hard.

  “Let me go, and I won’t tell your mother how offensive—”

  “Offensive? A woman like you is offensive to all men,” Kyril said, and she pushed hard again, driving two stiffened fingers into his solar plexus. He staggered back with a grunt of pain.

  “You cannot blame a man for asking,” he said, almost smugly. “Most women consider it a compliment if a man desires them.”

  “Oh, Kyril, surely you are not short of women to warm your bed!” she said crossly. “You are only trying to annoy me! I don’t want to trouble Rohana; you know she is tired and ill these days! Just leave me alone!”

  “It would serve you right if no man ever desired you, and you had to marry a cross-eyed farmer with nine stepchildren,” Kyril snarled.

  “What does it matter to you, even if I marry a cralmac?”

  “You are my cousin; it is a matter of the honor of my family,” he said, “that you should become a real woman—”

  “Oh, go away! It is time for breakfast,” Jaelle said furiously. “If you make me late, I swear I will tell Rohana why and risk making her as sick as I am when I look at you and smell your filthy breath!” She pushed to the door of the stable while Kyril rubbed his bruised rib.

  As the two young people headed for the great hall, she saw Dom Gabriel riding up to the great gateway. He was not alone, but she was only vaguely surprised to see the Lord of Ardais out so early; she could not credit that he might have been only in search of fresh air and exercise on a morning ride.

  I should not wonder that Kyril is already corrupt; with such a father, it would be a miracle if he were anything else. I only hope he did not awaken Rohana going out so early, she thought, and went up into the Great Hall for breakfast.

  Rohana, in a long loose gown covered with a white apron not unlike the housekeeper’s, greeted her with a smile.

  “You are awake early, Jaelle. Riding?”

  “No, aunt, only grooming my horse,” Jaelle said.

  Kyril slunk into his place at the table, and Jaelle, with a fragment of her consciousness, heard him order one of the serving-women to bring him wine.

  Ugh, he will be a drunken sot like his father within a year! Jaelle thought, and turned her attention to greeting her younger cousins. Elorie and Rian, with their governess, took their seats and attacked their porridge and honey with childish greed. Rohana had a little stewed fruit on her plate, but Jaelle noticed her kinswoman looked pale and was only pretending to eat.

  Dom Gabriel made an entrance—any other way of describing it, Jaelle thought, would be an understatement—followed by a slightly built, pretty girl of seventeen or so. She cast a look at Gabriel that was almost pleading, but he ignored her, and she assumed a look of hard defiance.

  Jaelle understood at once; this was not the first young woman that Lord Ardais had brought to the house under these circumstances; at least, she thought, this one is not younger than his own sons.

  “Gabriel, will you name our guest?” Rohana asked with perfect courtesy.

  He stepped to the girl’s side and said, “This is Tessa Haldar.” The double name proclaimed her at least minor nobility.

  Rohana said gently, “She will be staying?”

  “Certainly,” Gabriel said, not looking at the girl, and Rohana immediately comprehended. Jaelle was not much of a telepath, but she caught the edge of Rohana’s emotion.

  I suppose he thinks I care who he sleeps with?

  Gabriel glared at her, and Jaelle also heard what he would not say aloud before the entire household; well, you are no good to me now, are you?

  Rohana’s face paled with anger. Whose fault is that? It was you who wanted another child!

  Jaelle fought to close her perceptions, flooded with a sick embarrassment; by the time she looked up, Rohana was helping the girl off with her cloak. Poor child, none of this is her fault. Rohana said aloud, “Here, my dear, you must be chilled by your long ride. Sit here beside Dom Gabriel.” She beckoned to the hall-steward. “Hallard, set another place here, and take her cloak. Bring some hot tea; the kettle is cold.”

  “Forget that swill,” Dom Gabriel said contemptuously; “After a ride like that, a man wants something warming.” Rohana did not alter her cool gracious manner for a moment.

  “Hot spiced cider for Dom Gabriel and his guest.”

  “Hot spiced wine, you imbecile,” Dom Gabriel corrected her rudely. Rohana’s carefully held smile flickered, but she gave the order. Her lips were pressed tightly together and there were two spots of color on her cheeks.

  Kindra came into the hall and Rohana said good morning. She came to greet Jaelle and took a place among the children.

  Dom Gabriel scowled and said quietly to Rohana, over the bent head of the girl Tessa between them, “What’s this. Lady? Am I to have a woman in breeches at my own table?”

  Rohana said between her teeth, “Gabriel, I have been gracious to your guest.” He scowled fiercely, but he lowered his gaze and said nothing further.

  Jaelle gazed into her plate, feeling she would choke on her bread and butter. How could Rohana sit there calmly and allow Dom Gabriel to make her confront his new barragana at her own breakfast table? And when she was pregnant, too! Yet she sat there politely watching Dom Gabriel feed the girl sops of bread soaked in the spiced wine from his own goblet.

  Rian asked, “Mother, may I have wine instead of more tea?”

  “No, Rian, you cannot deal with lessons if you have been drinking; I will send for spiced cider for you; it will warm you better than wine.”

  “Rohana, don’t make a mollycoddle of the boy! If he wants to drink, let him,” Gabriel grumbled, but Rohana shook her head at the hall-steward.

  “Gabriel, you gave your word that the children should be wholly in my hands till they are grown.”

  “Oh, very well, do as you please. Listen to your mother, Rian; I always do,” Dom Gabriel said with a sickly smile.

  “If I were Rohana, I would . . . I would kick that girl, I would scratch that smug smile off her face,” Jaelle said to Kindra as they were leaving the Hall.

  Kyril heard and said jeeringly “What do you know of a man’s privileges?”

  “Enough to know I want no part of them,” Jaelle said. “I thought I had proved that to your satisfaction earlier this morning, cousin.”

  Rian, Rohana’s younger son, a slenderly-built boy of sixteen with a perpetually worried look on his face and red hair like Rohana’s, said, “Mother is not pleased, I can see that. But it is not the first time. My father will do what he will, and whatever he does, my mother will say before the household that whatever he chooses to do is well done—whatever she may think in private. I agree with you, Jaelle, it is a disgrace; but if she will not protest, ther
e is nothing you or I or anyone else can do.”

  Jaelle had seen Rian finish the goblet of his father’s spiced wine after Dom Gabriel left the table, when Rohana was not looking; she looked contemptuously at the boy and said nothing.

  Kindra said quietly, “Come to my room, Jaelle; I think we must talk about this.”

  And when they were alone in Kindra’s room, she said “By what right do you criticize your kinswoman Lady Rohana? Is that what I taught you, who want freedom for yourself, to refuse Lady Rohana her choices?”

  “You cannot convince me it is by her own choice that she allows him to bring his mistress right under her roof and to her own table!”

  Kindra said “Perhaps she would rather know where he does his wenching instead of wondering where he is when he is abroad? I know she is troubled about his health and fears something might happen to him if he goes forth from home. At least here she knows definitely what he is doing—and with whom.”

  “I think that’s disgusting,” said Jaelle.

  “It is no matter what you think; you were not consulted,” Kindra said sharply, “and it is not for you to complain if she does not. When she complains to me or consults me about his behavior, I shall not lie about how I feel, nor need you. But until she makes you the keeper of her conscience, Jaelle, do not presume to be so.”

  “Oh, you are as bad as Rian!” Jaelle said in frustration. “Rohana can do no wrong.”

  “Oh, I would hardly say that,” said Rohana gaily, coming into the room in time to hear Jaelle’s last words, “But I am glad to hear you think so, Jaelle.”

  “But I don’t think so,” said Jaelle crossly, turning her eyes away from Rohana, and slamming out of the room.

  Rohana raised her eyes. “Well, what was that all about, Kindra?”

  “Only a bad case of being sixteen-years old, and knowing how to settle all the problems of the world, except her own,” Kindra said wryly. “She loves you, Rohana; she cannot be expected to be happy at seeing you humiliated at your own table.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Rohana said, “but does she expect me to take it out on an innocent young girl who thinks she is loved by a nobleman? She will learn otherwise, soon enough, and my sympathy is all for her. Why, she cannot be much older than Jaelle.”

  “I think that may be what is troubling Jaelle, though she may not entirely realize it,” Kindra said.

  “Well, there is time enough for her to choose among men,” said Rohana. “But it would trouble me greatly if she were to decide that all men are like her Dry Town father—or like Gabriel—and turn away from them forever.”

  “Do you really think she will learn otherwise here?” asked Kindra. Rohana sighed.

  “No, I suppose not. Kyril is not much better than his father; I have tried to do my best by example, but it is only natural for a boy to pattern himself after his father. Perhaps I should send Jaelle to my kinswoman, who is happy with her husband. But she has so many little children—there are six not yet eight years old—and they really have not room for another grown girl under her roof. But one way or another, I should make sure she knows that men can be good and decent. Perhaps she should go for a time to Melora’s cousins in the lowlands.”

  “I had trouble enough getting her to come here,” Kindra reminded her. “And that was because she loved and respected you. I doubt she wants to learn more about men.”

  Rohana sighed again. “It is trouble enough having trouble with my own daughter,” she said, “but I wanted Jaelle here because she is all I have left of poor Melora. Perhaps I should have let her go to Jerana who was willing to make sure she would have the proper training of a Comyn daughter. Nevertheless, I do not want to think of her as turning entirely against men as they say Amazons do.”

  Kindra frowned and said seriously, “Rohana, would it really matter to you so much if she should become a lover of women? Are you so prejudiced on that subject?”

  “Prejudiced? Oh, I see,” Rohana said. “No, it would not trouble me so much; but I want her to be happy, and I am not yet convinced that there is any happiness for women outside marriage.”

  “I would find it hard to believe that there is happiness for women in marriage,” Kindra said. “Certainly I found none; I told you the story outside Jalak’s house in the Dry Towns.”

  Years slid away as Rohana remembered Kindra’s words. Kindra’s husband had felt her inadequate because she had borne him only two daughters; she had risked her life to have a third child and had borne the desired boy, after which he had showered her with jewels. “I was of no value,” Kindra had said. “The daughters I had borne at risk of my life were no value; I was only an instrument to give him sons. And so, when I could walk again, I cut my hair, and kissed my children sleeping, and made my way to the Guild House where my life began.” Yet Rohana knew this decision had not been made lightly, but with great anguish.

  Now she was strengthened to ask what she had never dared before despite their closeness.

  “But what of your children, Kindra? How could you leave them in his hands, then, if you thought him so evil?”

  Kindra’s face was colorless, even her tight lips white.

  “You may well ask; before I came to that decision, I had wept through many nights. I thought even of carrying them thither with me or stealing them back when they were big enough. Avarra pity me, one night I even stood over them with a dagger in my hand, ready to save them from the life I could not bear; but I knew I would turn it first on myself.”

  Her voice was flat, but her words came in a resistless rush which compelled Rohana’s silent attention. “But he—my husband—was not an evil man; it was only that he could not even see me; for him I did not exist, a wife was but an instrument to do his will. And I spoke to many wives, and not one could understand why I was angry or dismayed; they all seemed well-contented with their lot. So what could I do but believe that other women were so content—Many of them could not see what I had to complain of. They asked, ‘He does not beat you, does he?’ as if I should be happy just because he did not. So it seemed to me that the fault lay with me, that I could never be content under those terms, that I should die if I was no more than a mother of his children; but even that it was to his advantage to be rid of me and have a truly contented wife happy with her designated place in life, who could bring up my daughters to be happy as those other women seemed to be . . . in finding a husband and being his brood stock. And so I left him as much for his own good and theirs, as my own. And I have heard in the city that he married again and that my daughters married well, and they, too, seem happy. I have three grandsons I have never held in my arms; I am sure my daughters would draw away their skirts as if I bore plague, should I make myself known to them.” She swallowed, Rohana could see tears in her eyes. “But I have never looked back. And if I were there again, I would do the same.”

  Rohana embraced her silently, and did not speak for a long time. She felt touched by the other woman’s confidence, knowing it was not lightly given, even to her sisters of the Guild House; she had enough laran to know Kindra had never told her tale at this length to even the Guild-mothers.

  “I would not swear that I would not have done so in your place,” Rohana said, “but the choice never came to me; I bore my two sons before my daughter was born, and by the time she was born Gabriel was glad to have her. Gabriel already had a daughter by his first marriage and loved her well. She is in Dalereuth Tower; they say she has the Ardais Gift. She dwelt under our roof till she was fifteen; she had but lately left us when I learned of Melora’s plight.”

  And you were rich enough and had enough servants and ladies at your command that you could leave your own children in the hands of others and go on such a quest, Kindra thought, but Rohana picked up the thought.

  “It was not as easy as that, Kindra. Gabriel has not yet forgiven me.”

  “And this child you did not want is the price of his forgiveness? You pay highly for your husband’s good will, my Lady,” Kindra said,
and Rohana spontaneously embraced her.

  “Oh, my friend, do not say, my Lady to me. Call me by my name! I may call you my friend, may I not? My house is full of women, but I have no real friend anywhere among them! Not even Jaelle—she disapproves of me so much!”

  “Not even Domna Alida? Not even Dom Gabriel’s sister?”

  “She least of all,” Rohana said, still clinging to Kindra and looking up at her. “It troubles her that all things in the Domain have been given into my hands; she knows well that Gabriel is not competent to rule his own affairs, but she feels that since she is an Ardais and a leronis, if affairs must be in any hands but Gabriel’s own, they should be in hers. I think she would kill me if she could think of a way to escape punishment for my murder. She watches me forever—” Rohana deliberately stopped herself, aware that she sounded as if she were on the edge of hysteria.

  “So you can see I am in need of a friend. Stay with me, Kindra—stay at least until the baby is born!”

  Impulsively, Kindra embraced her.

  “I will stay as long as you want me, Rohana, I promise. Even if I must send Jaelle southward with a caravan before winter.”

  “She will not like that,” said Rohana, smiling wanly. “And to say that is like prophesying snow in the pass of Scaravel at Midwinter—it takes not much laran.” And having said this, she found herself wondering; did Kindra have laran after all? It was unheard of for her to be so much at ease with anyone outside her own caste.

  Kindra grinned at her. She said “I told you once in the desert, I think you would make a notable Amazon, Rohana. You have the true spirit. When I go southward with Jaelle, why not come with us? Or if it troubles you to travel when you are pregnant, bide here beneath his roof until your child is born. If it is a daughter, we will take her south with us and foster her in Thendara Guild House; if it is a son, leave it with Dom Gabriel since he has other women and all he now desires of you is another son. I think you would be happy as one of the Oath-bound of the Comhi Letzii.”