The Saga of the Renunciates

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Rohana looked up indignantly; looked at the swollen, unconscious body, the spreading bloodstains, feeling the wrenching agony seize Melora again, and herself flinched before the terrifying assault on body and mind. She said in violent indignation, "How can you? Is this any place for a little girl...?"

  Kindra said gently, but inexorably, "It is her right, Lady. Would you wish to sleep through your mother's deathbed? Or are you still lying to yourself, Lady Rohana?" She did not wait for Rohana's answer. Rohana, kneeling, letting Melora grip her hands with that anguished death-grip, heedless of Melora's nails digging into her and drawing blood, was seized again by that moment of terror she had known at the climax of her own child-beds... Breaking, tearing, splitting, coming apart... dying... Rohana struggled to keep herself a little apart from Melora's terror, to give her kinswoman some strength, something to cling to outside her own agony and fear. She held Melora, murmuring endearments, whispering, "We're with you, love, we're right here, we're going to take good care of you.”, but she did not know what she was saying.

  For the first and last time Melora shrieked aloud, a long, terrible cry of anguish and dread; and then, just as the sun was rising, into the terrible silence there was another sound: a strange, sharp, shrill sound, the uplifted howling of a newborn child.

  "Praise to Evanda," said Rima, holding up the naked, bloody child, feet first. "Listen to how strong he is! I didn't have to slap this one into life-"

  Melora whispered, almost inaudibly, "Give him to me," and reached out for him, her face changing. The never-failing miracle, Rohana, thought. Always, no matter how hard and terrible the birth, there was this moment of joy, when the face changed, alight and glowing. Melora looks so happy, so happy; how can she? Rohana wondered, not remembering her own happiness. Rima wrapped the baby in a fold of clean towel she had laid ready, and placed him on Melora's flaccid belly. She said matter-of-factly, "He will do well enough."

  "Jalak's son," Melora whispered, and the joyous smile slipped away. "What will become of him, poor little wretch?"

  Rima said sharply, "My Lady – "

  Melora reached out her hands. She said, "Jaelle-Jaelle, come here and kiss me-oh, Jaelle – "

  Rima cried out in consternation; blood came forth in a great gush, and Melora sighed and fell back, her face white and lifeless. And there was no sound in the sunrise except the crying of Melora's motherless children.

  "Will you truly have Jalak's son to foster, Lady Rohana?" Kindra asked.

  The sun was high in the camp. Jaelle had cried herself to exhaustion and was lying on the sand between them, limp, like some bedraggled little animal. Rohana was half sitting, half lying against a pile of saddlebags. She had wrapped the naked child and thrust him inside her tunic against her breasts, where he squirmed and nuzzled, already lively and seeking the nourishment he did not know would be denied him. Rohana patted the warm bundle tenderly. She said, "What else can I do, Kindra? I swore to Melora that her children should be to me as my own in all things."

  Kindra said fiercely, "He is a male of Jalak's blood; do not your kinsmen and your foster-brother's blood cry out for revenge, that you should cherish him? Is there not blood-feud and a life between you and Jalak's son, my Lady?" She bared her knife, handed it to Rohana, hilt first. She said, "He cost Melora her life, so she came never to her hard-won freedom; and he is Jalak's son. Avenge your kinsmen, Lady."

  Chilled, sick with horror, Rohana knew that Kindra spoke no more than simple truth. The men of the Ardais and Aillard Domains would have echoed her words: Jalak's son must pay for Jalak's crimes.

  She felt the child move against her body, warm and strong. Melora's child; and I took him up from her dead body. She looked at Jaelle, who was curled tight beside them, her eyes shut in rejection. She is Jalak's child, too. Must she pay?

  Kindra said earnestly, "Rohana, he will die, whatever you do now. There is no nurse for him, no food, no proper care. Don't wring your heart for him; let him lie here beside his mother."

  Slowly, Rohana shook her head. She handed back the knife, meeting the Amazon's eyes. She said, "Blood-feud and revenge are for men, Kindra. I am glad to be a woman, and bound by no such cruel law. Let this child's life, not his death, pay for my foster-brother's death; Ardais lost a son in Valentine, so this boy shall be called Valentine." She laid her hands, as if in ritual, on the small squirming body, "And he shall be foster-son to Ardais, in place of the one who died at Jalak's hands."

  Kindra put the knife away, raised her face with a grim smile. She said, "Well spoken, my Lady. An Amazon would say so, indeed; but I had not thought you were so free to discard the laws of your clan and caste."

  Rohana said violently, "I hope I will always feel free to ignore any law so cruel! It may be that he will die, as you say; but not at my hands, and not if I can save him!"

  Kindra nodded. "So be it," she said. "I will speak to Rima; she has fostered motherless babes before this. Our women sometimes die in bearing, too, and Rima is skilled in all the secrets of the Arilinn Guild-house." She rose, saying, "There is another child of Melora's who needs your care; look to her, Lady."

  She went off to join the other Amazons, who were burying Melora in the hill behind the water hole. Rohana turned to Jaelle and began to stroke her hair gently.

  "Jaelle," she coaxed, "don't cry any more, darling. I know nothing can heal your grief, but you must not make yourself ill with crying. I swore that I would be a mother to you, always. Come, darling, look at me," she pleaded. "Don't you want to see your little brother? He needs someone to love and comfort him, too." She added, "You had your mother for twelve years, Jaelle; this poor little mite lost his mother before she had ever looked into his face. He has none but his sister; will you not come and help me to comfort him?"

  Jaelle pulled away with a shudder of violent revulsion, her sobs rising again to a frenzy, and Rohana, in despair, let her go. Jaelle had not spoken since Melora's death; Rohana feared that in those last few moments of Melora's life, spent in terror and dread, in the fear of death, the child's mind had been roughly opened to the terrifying telepathic rapport, her latent Gift wakened in that dreadful instant of shock and agony.

  No one could have blamed Melora for reaching out, with her last conscious thought, in the only way for which she still had strength-for one last, desperate attempt to touch her beloved child. But what had it done to Jaelle?

  As if he sensed Rohana's desperate unease, the baby began to stir and fret and whimper inside her tunic again. She stroked him, thinking of the long leagues that still lay between them and Carthon, where she might at least find a wet-nurse for the child. For him it was a simple matter of survival; handled, fed, carefully cared for, he would survive. But what of Jaelle? She would not die, but what had that shock done to her? Only time would tell.

  Perhaps the Amazons can do more for her than I. I am, in her mind, still part of that moment of terror and death. But perhaps they can comfort Jaelle and help her.

  She must leave it to them, at least until Jaelle was calm and recovered her senses. After that-Rohana looked longingly at Jaelle's soft tangled hair, but dared not touch her-after that, only time would tell.

  Chapter Five

  Twelve days later, Rohana looked down from the top of the pass that led away into the valley of Thendara.

  "Jaelle," she called, turning back, "come here and see the city of your forefathers!"

  Obediently the young girl rode forward, looking at the ancient city that lay in the valley below them. "This is the city of the Comyn? I have never seen so big a city; Shainsa is not half so large." She looked down with fascination and, it seemed, with dread, at the wide-flung buildings, the Comyn Castle beyond. "Tell me, kinswoman; is it true that the Comyn are descended from the Gods? My-I have heard it said, and I have heard-I have heard it denied. What is the truth?"

  How deftly she avoids either her father's name or her mother's! In twelve days she has spoken of neither of them. Rohana said, "I can tell you only what I have he
ard myself. The story goes that Hastur, son of Aldones, Lord of Light, came to our world at Hali; and that he wooed and won Cassilda, daughter of Robardin, mother of the Domains; and thus all those of the blood of Hastur are kin to the Gods. If it be true, or only a beautiful fable, I know no more than you; but this much is true beyond question. All those of the blood of the Hasturs, all the kin of the Seven Domains, have the laran powers, the psi gifts that set them apart from all other men born on this world."

  "Are all of the Comyn of Hastur blood, then?"

  "In the beginning, yes; although in the great days of the Towers they were separated into the seven families we now call the Domains. All are of the blood of Hastur and Cassilda. But it is sure that none of us are Gods or anything like it, my child."

  Would that we were. I should know better what to do with you, little one. Rohana sighed, touching the warm sleeping weight where Melora's baby slept, tucked inside her tunic for warmth; it was cold at these heights, even in summer; Jaelle was no longer openly hostile to Rohana, but she had not turned to her for comfort, either. Nor had she been willing to touch her little brother, or so much as look at him.

  Every one of the Amazons-even the two neutered women, Leeanne and Camilla-had shared the burden of the newborn child in those first dreadful days, before they reached Carthon and found a wet nurse for him. They had all spared sugar and meal to make gruel for him, and, knowing that Rohana was exhausted and burdened with grief, had taken turns to carry him and try to soothe his fitful crying. Only Jaelle had steadfastly ignored her brother; had refused, even when urged repeatedly by Kindra, whom she adored, to hold him in her arms or even look at him.

  As if her thoughts had reached him, the baby Valentine began to stir and fret, and Rohana beckoned to the wet-nurse from Carthon; she rode forward, took the child from Rohana, and opening her dress, lazily put the child to her breast. She was, Rohana thought, a singularly stupid woman-I would not let her rear a pet dog, let alone a child-but he throve on her milk, and for now that was all that mattered.

  Should any woman alive be allowed to live so ignorant that she is no better than a dairy-animal? The Free Amazons openly despised her, and with the pride seen in the invincibly stupid, the wet-nurse treated them with contempt. Rohana-sharing their contempt for the woman, but needing her services-tried to mediate an uneasy peace.

  Rohana stretched her back (the sling in which she carried the baby during the day gave her cramps in the shoulders) and tried to think ahead. She had pledged Melora that she would rear the children as her own. Her husband would not object; he had said often that he would welcome more children, regretted that Rohana had borne only three. But now reaction had set in, after Rohana's first elation at saving Melora's son alive. What have I taken upon myself? My eldest is already almost grown; my daughter is already five, and since two of our children are sons, Gabriel agreed I need have no more. And now when I thought I was done with it, again I have all the worry and trouble of rearing a very little one! No doubt Gabriel will begin to talk, again, of having another so he will not be brought up alone.

  Am I only an instrument to give him sons? she thought, and was horrified at herself. Quickly she turned her thoughts elsewhere: What place can we make in the Domains for the son of a Dry-Towner? And Jaelle, so cold and withdrawn, will she ever accept me?

  It was too much to expect, that she could find comfort in the child. I am a mother myself, that was the greatest comfort to me, that something remained of Melora... but Jaelle is a child. She sees only that poor little Val robbed her of their mother...

  Kindra drew her horse close to Rohana's. She said, "Lady, is that where the Terrans are building their spaceport? What do they want here, these men from another world?"

  "I do not know." Rohana gazed at the great dirt-colored slash beyond the city of Thendara, where, it seemed, several miles of the valley had been ripped open by their enormous machines and smoothed to an eerie, unnatural flatness. Part of the area had been paved, and buildings were sprouting in strange, unlikely shapes. "I have heard that our world is at a crossroad of their travel roads among the stars; they seem to have trade caravans between the many worlds as we have between the towns in the Lake Country. I don't know what their trade may be, no one has bothered to tell me, though I think Gabriel knows." She fancied a look of contempt from Kindra. Why should I be content with ignorance? Oh, damn these Amazons, they are making me question everything: myself, Gabriel, my very life!

  It made her voice edgy. "These people, they call themselves the Terran Empire, came first to Caer Donn, near Aldaran, and began a spaceport-a small one, they could not build so wide in the mountains there-and dealt with the accursed Aldarans. Hastur offered them a place here to build their spaceport where the climate would be more to their liking-I have heard that to them our world seems cold-and so we can keep watch over their doings; but of course we have nothing to do with them.”.

  "Why not?" asked Kindra. "I should think that a race which can travel from star to star as readily as I can ride from here to Nevarsin would have a great deal to teach us."

  Rohana said stiffly, "I do not know; Hastur has willed it so."

  "How fortunate are the men of the Domains, that they have the son of Hastur to teach them," said Kindra, her gray eyebrows lifting. "A stupid woman like myself would have felt that a race which can make trade caravans among the stars might outreach even a Hastur in wisdom."

  Rohana was annoyed by the sarcasm, but she felt too deeply indebted to Kindra to take her to task for it. "I have heard it explained thus: Hastur feels there is much in their way of life that might be more of a threat than we can know at once. They have, for a beginning, leased the spaceport here for five hundred years, so that we will have plenty of time to choose what we can learn from them."

  "I see," said Kindra, and was silent, thinking it over, studying the enormous slash on the horizon, where strange machines crawled and unknown shapes grew against the horizon.

  Rohana, too, was silent. As they rode this last mile, it seemed that she was, in a curious way, changing worlds. For near to forty days she had lived in a world as alien to her as the world of the Terrans below; then she had grown used to it, and now she must again change worlds, make ready to reenter her own.

  At first the world in which the Amazons lived had seemed hard and comfortless, strange and lonely. Then she had realized that most of the strangeness was not the physical lack of comfort at all. It was quite different. It was easy to get used to long hours of riding, to unfamiliar and ugly clothes, to bathing as one could in stream or river, to sleeping in tents or under the sky.

  But it was not nearly so easy to give up the familiar support of known protections, known ways of thinking. Until she came on this journey, she had never quite realized how much all her decisions, even small personal ones, had been left to her father and brothers, or, since she married, to her husband. Even such small things as Shall I wear a blue gown or a green? Shall I order fish or fowl for the table tonight had been dictated less by her own tastes and preferences than Gabriel's wishes. She had not realized, until Jaelle and the newborn Val were hers for fostering, how much even what she had said to the children or done for them had been based, openly or not, on how well Gabriel would think of her for her dealings with them.

  A strange, painful, almost traitorous thought kept returning: Now that I know how to make my own decisions, will I ever be content again to let Gabriel decide for me?

  Or, if I do go back, is it only because it is so much easier to do exactly what is expected of a woman of my caste?

  They had ridden through the great city gates of Thendara now, and people came out to stare at the sight of a Comyn lady in the company of an Amazon band. Inside the city Kindra dismissed most of the Free Amazons to the Guild-house in Thendara. Accompanied only by Kindra, Jaelle, and the wet nurse with the baby, Rohana rode on to the Comyn Castle.

  In the suite that had belonged to the Ardais clan for uncountable years, Rohana summoned the skeleton
staff of servants who remained there all year round-most of the Ardais retainers-returned home to Castle Ardais, with their masters, when Council season was over-and ordered that comfortable quarters be found for the wet-nurse and the baby; that Kindra be treated as an honored guest; and that Jaelle, whom she introduced as her foster-daughter without going into details, be made comfortable in a room near her own, and provided with suitable clothing.

  Then she dispatched a message to the Princess Consort announcing her return, and summoned her own personal maid, bracing herself for the inevitable: the woman's shocked reaction to her hacked-off hair, her completely unsuitable clothes, the state of her hands and complexion, roughened with riding and outdoor living.

  It will be worse than this, when I return to Ardais. Why should I need to be always beautiful? I am not a dancer, or a lyric performer. And I have long ago made my good marriage. But there are those who would think Melora's rescue too dearly bought at the cost of my hair and my complexion!

  Just the same, even while she chafed at the woman's duckings and scoldings for getting herself in such a state, it was good to lie again at full length in a hot bath, scented with balsam; good to soothe her roughened and chapped skin with creams and healing lotions, to be dressed again in soft feminine garments.

  When she was ready, word had come that the Lady Jerana would receive them; and that the Lord Lorill Hastur wished to receive the Free Amazon leader as well. When Rohana relayed this royal command-for, though veiled in exquisite courtesy, that was what it was-Kindra smiled wryly.

  "No doubt he wishes to be certain I have not committed the Domains to war with the Dry Towns."

  "Nonsense," said Rohana irritably. "He is Melora's kinsman too; I am sure he wants to thank you!"

  "Well, Lady, whatever it is, it is for me to obey the Lord Hastur," said Kindra, "so we shall see."