The Saga of the Renunciates

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Magda felt a little relieved; she was not fond of fine clothes, in particular, but she would have felt strange to think of spending the rest of her life in rough and unattractive work clothes!

  Jaelle said delightedly, when they were ready to go down, "I had no idea you were so pretty! When I first saw you, you looked like a half-frozen rabbit, and after that I have not been able to notice!"

  Magda herself had been aware of Jaelle's astonishing beauty, even in rough Amazon dress; in the green gown, she was breathtaking. She saw her own opinion confirmed when Peter joined them in the hallway, outside their connecting rooms; he looked at Jaelle in delighted amazement. She smiled at him shyly, and lowered her eyes; Magda knew Jaelle was embarrassed at recalling how she had clung to him when she was weak and ill. Jaelle did not offer him her hand as she had done readily during her illness; strangely, the very omission seemed to create a greater closeness than the frank gesture. She reacted to him as a child reacts then. Now she is very aware that he is a man and she a woman, Magda thought.

  Peter said softly, "I am very happy to see you recovered, Jaelle," and with something of her own constraint, turned to Magda, and offered her his arm. She took it, mostly because she sensed his embarrassment and tension and it was an old habit, to cover his indecision.

  "Have you noticed how like our own celebrations this is? The halls decorated with greenery, the great fire, the exchanged gifts-even the smell of the spice-bread!"

  She knew he was only saying the first thing that came into his head, to cover embarrassment; it roused an old emotion, a mixture of tenderness and exasperation, so familiar that she felt an old, inner trembling.

  "You are lovely, Magda. But I miss your lovely long hair-" He put up his hand to touch the bare nape of her neck: a gesture of intimacy, permitted only to lovers. Magda felt embarrassed. She said in a low voice, "Don't, Piedro." She used his Darkovan name deliberately, to remind him of where they were. Yet she knew it had had exactly the reverse effect; it had recreated the old intimacy.

  He said, "Margali," speaking her Darkovan name like a special caress. She saw Jaelle's eyes on them and dropped his hand as if it burned her, so that they went into the Great Hall side by side, but not together.

  The kindled midwinter-fire burned on the great hearth, and dom Gabriel, Lord of Ardais, stood before it, a tall, soldierly man, with graying russet hair, dressed in green and scarlet. When Jaelle stepped toward him with a formal bow, he clasped her, briefly, in a kinsman's embrace, pressing his lips to her cheek.

  "I rejoice that you are well enough to join us, Jaelle. A pleasant year to you, and all happiness."

  "I thank you for your hospitality, for myself and my friends, Uncle," Jaelle said, and stepped along, to be warmly hugged by Rohana and to exchange greetings with her cousins. Magda and Peter stood before the Ardais lord; he bowed over her hand, raising his eyes to hers with a puzzled, kindly smile. Magda thought of what Jaelle had said: "Anything belonging to Rohana he will treat kindly-pet dogs, Free Amazons, even Terrans...!" It seemed to her for a moment that Jaelle had been hard on him; from the very touch of his hand she sensed he was a decent man and a kind one, if a little narrowed by the prejudices of his caste, and without much imagination. Anyway, if Rohana loved and obeyed him, he must have more virtues than Jaelle could see in him.

  "Welcome, mestra, as my kinswoman's friend; a pleasant holiday to you, and a fortunate year."

  Magda, recalling the New Year's greeting of her Caer Donn childhood, said, "My year will be brightened by the memory of your hospitality; may the fires of your hearth never grow cold, Lord Ardais," and saw the puzzlement grow in his eyes. As she moved on to exchange formal greetings with Rohana and her grown children, she thought, He obviously knows we are Terrans. Is he surprised that we can manage ordinary politeness? She wondered if the Ardais lord really thought that a race which could create a Galactic empire were all ignorant boors without any sense of good manners...

  Lady Alida, at one of the long tables, raised her eyes, looked directly at Magda and beckoned; Magda could think of no polite way to ignore the invitation. The Comyn lady wore a festival gown of pale blue; her red-gold hair was coiled low on her neck. She gestured to Magda to sit next to her, and Magda felt the little prickles of "hunch" touching her again. Alida was a Comyn lady, a leronis, and gifted with psi power. A mere trace of this, in Jaelle, had given Magda away. How could she manage not to betray herself?

  For a time, everyone's attention was on the small delicacies of the table: a clear soup with golden slices of some delicious mushroom floating in it; small, hot savory tidbits of different kinds; spicebread in all sorts of ornamental shapes, gilded and decorated. But as these were taken away, and the servants-in their holiday garments, and joining in the feast they helped to serve-brought the main courses, Alida turned to Magda and said, "While your sworn sister was ill and needed your care, I would not call you from her side, mestra. But now she is well," and she looked at Jaelle, laughing between Peter and her cousin and obviously teasing them about their resemblance. "I wanted a word with you. Have you never been tested for laran, Margali?"

  "No. Never."

  "But surely you were aware of your inborn talent, were you not?"

  "No," Magda said again, and a faint frown furrowed the lady's high pale forehead.

  "But surely... as you know, it wakes normally at adolescence; had you no hint of this gift? Or were you committed so early to the life of a Free Amazon that you did not ask for this testing?"

  That would have been a good escape, but the lie was too easily discovered; it was a matter of record that she had only recently been made a Free Amazon. She fell back on the literal truth. "Until the other day, my Lady, I had no idea that I had the faintest trace of laran. It came as a great surprise to me."

  "Well, when Midwinter Festival is over, we must have you properly tested," Alida said, as if the matter were settled. How, Magda wondered, would she get out of this? With definite relief, she remembered something else. She never would have believed herself capable of putting this forth with positive pleasure. "After midwinter, Lady, my duties commit me to the Guild-house."

  Lady Alida brushed that aside. "Something will be arranged. An untrained telepath is a danger to herself and everyone around her, and that would apply to all your sisters of the Guild-house." She said no more, politely calling her guest's attention to the musicians who had come to entertain them, and would play later for the dancing.

  But enough had been said to ruin Magda's appetite. What was she going to do now?

  When the meal ended, the older guests gathered around the midwinter-fire for gossip and reminiscence (Magda knew these house parties, held when the weather brought all outdoor work to a standstill, were reunions of friends who often did not meet from year to year) while the younger people descended into the lower hall for dancing. Magda had learned to dance as a child-a girl could not reach her eighth year in Caer Donn without learning to dance, and to dance well-and knew most of these dances.

  Although she took part with pleasure when Jaelle and Lori drew her into a ring-dance with a dozen other girls, she did not know what the rules of Amazon etiquette were for dancing with men after the group dances gave way to dancing in couples. But after a time, seeing Jaelle laughing and flirting and dancing with all comers, she grew less hesitant. She accepted the invitations, enjoying it on two levels: the Terran agent making mental notes (But would she ever really be that again?), and, to her own surprise, the young girl she had been in Caer Donn, mingling for the first time with young men. It was, literally, the first time since childhood when she had felt herself actually in the company of her own kind.

  Magda had never realized until this moment quite how much her curious, between-worlds childhood had robbed her of the ability to mingle with people her own age. Childhood in Caer Donn had prepared her, emotionally and socially, for adolescence and maturity in the same world; instead, before adolescence, she had been torn away and isolated in the Terran Zone wit
h children whose background was only that of the Empire; and at sixteen she had been sent off-world for training. She had felt isolated and completely at a loss with girls or boys her own age in the Empire. Later, when she could mingle with Darkovans in the course of her work, there were many inhibitions against allowing any purely personal contacts; and in any, case Darkovan women met men only in their homes and under the proper sponsorship of their families.

  But now, as Rohana's guest, she could join in freely. If I had been exposed to a little of this when I was twenty I would never have married Peter. The thought troubled her for some reason, and she was glad to turn to a young man of dom Gabriel's household who came up to her, asking for a dance. After a time he said, "Is your name-Margali?"

  "Yes, that is what they call me."

  "I thought so! You had another name, but none of us could pronounce it, so we called you by that one. You are Toroku Lome's daughter, are you not?" The title was the equivalent of "learned" man" or "professor," and had been given her father by the local children. "I knew you when we were children; you used to have dancing lessons with my sisters, Tara and Renata. I am Darrill, son of Darnak."

  Now she remembered Darrill, and his sisters. She had once spent midwinter-night with Renata when she was quite small; she had played with them, visited in their home, and brought them to her own home in the HQ. Darrill had been an older boy, out of their orbit.

  He said, "I thought all of you Terrans had gone to Thendara and would not return to the Hellers. What are you doing here?"

  "I am Lady Rohana's midwinter guest-or rather, the guest of her kinswoman Jaelle."

  Darrill" demanded, "Do they know who you really are? I am dom Gabriel's sworn man, and if you are here under false pretenses, Lord Ardais should know!"

  Magda said, trying to control her inner trembling, "My true name and my purposes are known to Lady Rohana; you may ask her if you wish. And I suppose, since she knows, that dom Gabriel knows as well."

  He said with a faint grin, "I suppose so; but if the lady knows, it does not really matter whether dom Gabriel knows or not, since it is well known from here to the Kadarin that the lady rules the estate, with dom Gabriel's assistance when he feels so inclined."

  She asked after his sisters; he told her the names of their husbands, and how they fared. She wondered if it was really safe to spend time with anyone who knew who and what she really was. But it might be worse to make a point of avoiding him; that would be suspicious conduct indeed. His fear that she was a spy once overcome, he seemed to accept it as quite normal that she be here.

  It ought to be normal! Darkovans and Terrans should have a chance to be together, then they will not have a chance to build barriers of ignorance and distrust! Lorill Hastur is wrong, wrong, wrong!

  When he had left her-it seemed, with reluctance-she found herself standing next to Jaelle, who had paused, breathless, after a fast, romping dance.

  "I think Camilla was right," she said, laughing. "There are men who find scars irresistible on a woman! I have never been so popular!"

  "I had half expected to find that Amazons were not allowed to take any notice of men-after Camilla warned me so sternly not even to look at them!" Magda could laugh about this memory now.

  "Oh, this is only when there is work to be done, or the men are such as might consider a glance some sort of-of invitation," and Jaelle. "There have been times when I worked with men and they took no more notice of me than of another workman. We learn not to cause trouble-you will learn it, in the Guild-house-so that an Amazon can travel alone in a band of a dozen men, and will be accepted as one of them. But I also know how to behave when I want them to accept me as a woman-at Midwinter Festival, for instance! Or midsummer, when the dances-in Thendara, for instance-go on all night, and extend into the gardens! And you know the old proverb: 'What is done under the four moons need not be remembered when they have set.' Although for my part I have never had any taste for waiting forty days after, to see if I would bear a child in the spring-" She broke off, saying gently, "I am sorry-it is like talking with Rohana; I forget sometimes that she has been trained to the politenesses of women's speech. I did not mean to shock you, sister!"

  Magda had not, of course, been shocked at the words; but she realized that she did not know Jaelle at all, in this madcap mood. And she herself had been brought up to observe the fairly straitlaced sexual taboos of the mountain women. This had been confusing to her during her off-world training and had tended to throw her, more and more, into the company of Peter; he respected them, to some degree shared them.

  Jaelle said, "In any case, no one cares much what happens at such festivals; even dom Gabriel will turn a blind eye to whatever happens in the galleries and dark corners, or when the fires burn low... Usually the old people go off to bed early and leave the young people to do as they please." She leaned close to Magda, and whispered, her eyes glowing with mischief, "There is a saying that you never master a language completely till you have learned to make love in it! I saw Darrill looking at you-I am sure he would be happy to teach you."

  Magda felt her cheeks flaming, and Jaelle gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder. "T should not tease you, sister. Someday you will know how to take our jests, too. Here is Piedro, come to dance with you at last!"

  Instead he took Magda lightly by the elbow, and said, "I want to talk to you for a minute." He guided her toward the refreshment table, dipped himself up some wine from the great cut-crystal bowl there. He said in an undertone, "What did Darrill say to you?"

  "Only that he recognized me," she said, "and asked if dom Gabriel knew who I was."

  "He asked me the same," said Peter. "I told him that since Lady Rohana knew who I was, I was quite sure dom Gabriel knew it also." He hesitated, about to fill her glass.

  "No, I've had enough. I'm feeling a little dizzy," and she nibbled on a bit of cake instead.

  Peter said, almost jealously, "I saw you dancing with Darrill. You certainly seem to be enjoying yourself!"

  "I am. Aren't you? I've never had a chance to do this kind of thing before! And I've missed it!"

  "It never occurred to me you would want to," Peter said. "I have gone to the Midsummer Festivals in Thendara these last three years; if I had thought of it I could have taken you. But"-he hesitated-"at the public festivals-not the ones in private houses like this, where everything is very decorous-but the public dances, where all comers mingle, the party sometimes gets a little wild. Dancing till dawn, pairing off in the gardens and all that; I didn't think you’d want to come."

  Magda suddenly felt a violent resentment; he felt it was suitable to go himself, even if the party got a little... wild. Yet he had decided, without consulting her, that that kind of entertainment was not suitable for her! She said dryly, "You might have let me decide it for myself."

  He raised his hand to touch the nape of her neck again; a suggestive touch, arousing memories she had tried to forget. He whispered, "I was jealous, darling."

  She felt a sudden, almost completely irrational anger. How dared he make that decision for her? Had he felt free, then, to take a casual sweetheart for himself at these festivals-a privilege he felt himself justified in denying to her, as it he were her tulher or guardian?

  He was still bending close to her, fondling her neck; she could feel his warm breath. He was a little drunk; not much. Like herself, he had been taught to take great care with alcohol or other mind-altering drugs, and he knew and watched his own limits carefully. He was a good agent, she thought, a gifted agent, and felt the old fondness surge through her, so that she did not move away when he put his arm around her and drew her into the shadow of the draperies at one side. He bent his head, murmured to her.

  She tensed in his arms and said sharply, "Speak casta; have you forgotten where we are?"

  He brought his lips down on hers and kissed her. "It's good to be alive!" he said violently. "It's midwinter-night-and I knew I was going to die. I knew there was no hope of rescue. Oh, Magda, Magda
, Magda..." His voice faded out. He kissed her, hard enough to hurt. "And I'm alive, and you're here, and we're together again."

  At first she did not protest, thinking it was a mere surge of gratitude, awareness of life instead of death; but his embrace grew quickly more demanding, more personal.

  "Do you have any idea how much I want you, need you, how damnably I've missed you?"

  Gently she tried to put a little space between herself and his demanding caresses, but he whispered against her throat, "You feel it, too, I know you do! You want me as much as I want you, or you'd never have come so far for me."

  Against her will she felt herself responding; but a cold rational voice was saying in the back of her mind: Now that you are free of him, do you truly want to start the whole miserable thing over again? The excitement of the festival, a few drinks, the general atmosphere of license and the straitlaced rules relaxed for once, the fact that he'd been alone a long time and wanted a woman-that's what it was and that's all it was. She wouldn't be fooled into thinking it was more than that. Gently, but inexorably, she removed his hands from her.

  "I'm sorry, Peter."

  "Mag, Mag, I need you so. Don't you know we belong together?"

  "I'm sorry, truly I am," she said with a sigh. "Until a little while ago, I thought so, too. But now I just don't feel guilty about you anymore. Now I'm just sorry I can't give you what you want."

  "Is there someone else? That Darrill – "

  "No, no. Nothing like that. Don't be foolish, Peter. I haven't seen him since I was nine years old!"